■  >  ■->■> .' 


THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 

OF  CALIFORNIA 

LOS  ANGELES 


v'-PRINTED    FOR-MEMBER5-ON 


A  LIMITED  NUMBER  OF  COPIES  OF  THIS  VOLUME 
HAVE  BEEN  PRINTED  FOR  MR.  SMITH  FOR  PRESEN- 
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THE   COUNCIL 


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LETTERS 

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Copyright,  1910,  by 

THE  BIBLIOPHILE   SOCIETY 

All  rights  reserved 


INTRODUCTORY  NOTE 

By  Henry  H.  Harper 

At  the  time  of  the  issue  (in  1908)  of  the 
volume  of  the  Dickens-Beadnell  Correspon- 
dence, containing  Professor  Baker's  footnote 
calling  attention  to  another  collection  of  early 
Dickens  letters  that  changed  hands  in  Birming- 
ham, England,  about  ten  years  ago,  it  was 
hardly  to  be  hoped  or  believed  that  within  a 
year  these  letters  should  be  located  here  in 
the  United  States,  and  in  the  hands  of  a  gener- 
ous Bibliophile,  who  not  only  expressed  an 
eager  willingness  to  share  their  contents  with 
his  fellow-booklovers,  but  also  offered  to  edit 
and  arrange  them  for  the  press,  which  he  has 
done  in  a  scholarly  and  highly  entertaining 
and  instructive  manner.  Mr.  Harry  B.  Smith, 
of  New  York,  the  present  owner  of  this  collec- 
tion of  letters  written  by  Dickens  to  his  friend 
Kolle,  has  in  the  following  pages  related  by 
what  a  narrow  margin  the  Dickens-Beadnell 
episode  escaped  being  exploited  in  public 
print  before  the  advent  of  the  recent  Biblio- 
phile edition  of  the  letters  from  Dickens  to 
[vj 


93SGP' 


4J 


Maria  Beadnell-Winter.  It  will  be  remem- 
bered that  Kolle,  in  addition  to  looking  after  his 
own  interests  in  wooing  a  fair  member  of  the 
Beadnell  household,  served  young  Dickens 
in  the  capacity  of  messenger  in  smuggling  his 
imploring  love  missives  through  the  parental 
barriers  and  into  the  hands  of  the  coquettish 
Maria,  after  Dickens  had  been  debarred  from 
the  Beadnell  home,  and  even  from  communi- 
cating with  Miss  Beadnell  through  the  mail. 
Nothing  could  better  illustrate  the  corrobo- 
rative character  of  these  letters  than  the  quota- 
tion appearing  on  pages  13-1^. 

Matters  of  an  intimately  personal  nature 
which  disclose  important  facts  and  give  a 
clearer  insight  into  the  lives  and  characters  of 
those  who  are  near  and  dear  to  us  are  always 
interesting.  Perhaps  no  author  excels  Dickens 
in  the  ever-increasing  number  of  admirers  he 
has  made  among  the  lovers  of  literature ;  and 
facts,  therefore,  which  relate  to  and  explain 
the  all-absorbing  event  of  his  life,  and  which, 
according  to  his  own  confession  to  Mrs. 
Winter,  were  the  inceptive  cause  of  his 
famous  career,  cannot  fail  to  be  of  interest. 
Any  new  autobiographical  material  of  this 
nature  may  be  justly  regarded  as  a  valuable 

[vi] 


contribution  to  literature,  and,  as  such,  is 
worthy  of  preservation  in  an  enduring  form. 

There  are  a  number  of  causes  which  co- 
operate to  make  this  series  of  letters  of 
unusual  interest  to  readers  of  Dickens.  Note- 
worthy among  its  attractive  features  is  the 
facility  with  which  Mr.  Smith  has  brought 
out  the  full  significance  of  every  point  in  its 
relation  to  the  principal  episode,  and  to  a 
better  knowledge  of  the  character  and  early 
struggles  of  the  author.  Letters,  —  which  if 
printed  disconnectedly  would  appear  incon- 
sequential,—  are  carefully  woven  into  the 
complete  fabric,  and  in  the  remarks  interposed 
by  Mr.  Smith  their  relative  importance  and 
meanings — oftentimes  more  or  less  obscure 
to  the  casual  reader — are  made  so  clear  and 
comprehensive  as  to  render  every  letter  an 
important  link  in  the  story.  It  would  have 
been  impossible  for  anyone  other  than  a  care- 
ful student  and  admirer  of  Dickens  to  have 
extracted  from  these  letters  and  given  to  the 
reader  so  much  that  is  new,  important  and 
interesting  alike  to  readers  and  collectors  of 
that  author's  works. 

Apart  from  its  direct  connection  with  the 
contents    of   the    Dickens-Beadnell   volume, 

[vii] 


this  book  has  a  distinct  value  of  its  own ;  but 
as  a  coincidental  issue,  each  supplements  and 
lends  interest  to  the  other. 

It  appears  inconceivable  that  the  correspond- 
ence of  one  so  full  of  literary  vitality  and  social 
proclivities,  as  was  Dickens  in  his  youth  and 
early  manhood,  could  have  been  confined  to 
one  or  two  individuals.  As  reporter  on  a 
London  daily  paper  he  was  brought  into  daily 
contact  with  all  sorts  of  companionable  men, 
both  young  and  old,  and  there  must  have 
been  others  than  Kolle  with  whom  he  was  on 
terms  of  equal  intimacy,  and  with  whom  he 
occasionally  exchanged  letters.  Though  not 
born  with  a  golden  spoon  in  his  mouth, 
Dickens  may  be  said  to  have  been  born  with 
a  pen  in  his  hand,  which  he  kept  almost 
constantly  in  service.  In  his  reportorial  days 
his  acquaintance  must  have  been  widely  ex- 
tended, and  in  his  biographies  we  find  refer- 
ences to  his  "many  warm  friends;"  but 
strangely  enough,  they  reveal  no  names  which 
would  serve  as  a  clue  to  definite  facts  with 
regard  to  the  formative  period  in  the  life  of 
the  great  novelist.  Almost  without  exception 
the  writers  of  his  memoirs  jump  abruptly 
from  the  blacking  warehouse  experiences  to 
[  viii  ] 


the  period  when  as  assistant  and  companion 
to  his  father  he  was  reporting  the  parh'ament- 
ary  debates  for  the  Daily  Chronicle.  It  is 
not  impossible  that  there  still  exists  an  un- 
covered wealth  of  Dickensiana  in  the  form  of 
early  letters  which  may  in  due  time  come 
before  the  public ;  and  yet  it  is  easy  to  under- 
stand why  his  early  letters  may  have  been 
destroyed  by  those  who  received  them,  for  the 
reason  that  at  that  time  no  one  suspected  him 
of  undeveloped  greatness,  and  even  his  closest 
friends  would  not  be  likely  to  encumber  their 
files  with  his  letters,  which  had  no  apparent 
value.  In  fact  it  is  a  matter  of  astonishment 
that  any  of  them  should  have  been  preserved ; 
hence  the  great  value  of  the  very  few  that  are 
known  to  exist.  That  the  letters  of  a  scorned 
and  rejected  suitor  should  have  been  carefully 
cherished  by  the  frivolous  girl  to  whom  they 
were  addressed  —  and  upon  whom  they  seem 
to  have  made  no  impression  — is  a  miracle 
bordering  on  the  supernatural ;  but  now  that 
another  group  of  contemporary  letters  bearing 
directly  upon  the  same  aflfair  has  come  to  light, 
the  coincidence  is  so  strange  as  to  appear  un- 
real. Truth  is  indeed  "  stranger  than  fiction." 
Even  in  the  face  of  the  contrary  views  of 

[ix] 


Professor  Baker,  in  the  Dickens-Beadnell 
Correspondence,  and  of  Mr.  Smith,  in  the 
present  volume,  I  am  forced  to  adhere  to  my 
former  conviction  that  Mary  Anne  Leigh  was 
never  in  love  with  Dickens,  and  that  the  part 
she  acted  in  "throwing  herself  in  his  way" 
was  prompted  only  by  one  of  two  purposes: 
either  that  she  herself  wished  to  experience 
the  sensation  of  toying  with  the  ardent  young 
lover  at  the  end  of  her  line,  or  else  that,  in  the 
interest  of  her  friend,  she  was  merely  endeavor- 
ing to  provide  for  her  the  usual  excuse  of  a 
clever  coquette  when  trying  to  shake  off  a 
suitor  of  whom  she  has  grown  tired.  Young 
Dickens  was  too  devoutly  in  love  with  Maria 
Beadnell  to  become  interested  in  any  other 
flirt,  and  he  refused  to  be  shaken  oif  so  easily. 
Determination  was  always  his  strong  suit,  and 
it  is  gratifying  to  know  that  it  won  for  him  in 
literature  what  it  failed  to  accomplish  in  love- 
making.  Mr.  Smith  points  out  the  fact  that 
Miss  Leigh  was  a  cleverer  girl  than  Maria 
Beadnell,  which  only  confirms  the  view  that 
she  would  not  have  allowed  herself  to  indulge 
in  anything  more  serious  than  a  sham  flirtation 
with  an  unpromising  youth  whom  her  friend 
and  companion  was  doing  her  best  to  get  rid 

[X] 


of.  A  clever  young  lady  of  Miss  Leigh's  type 
is  not  usually  found  playing  second  fiddle  to 
one  of  inferior  accomplishments,  in  the  pursuit 
of  a  rejected  lover.  Mr.  Smith  thinks  that 
Maria  Beadnell's  coldness  may  have  been  due 
to  "  Dickens'  attentions  to  Mary  Anne  Leigh." 
If  Miss  Beadnell  had  seriously  cared  for 
Dickens,  the  fact  that  her  friend  was  trying  to 
win  him  away  from  her  would  have  caused 
her  to  redouble  her  efforts  to  hold  him,  instead 
of  "freezing"  him  out;  and  in  addition, 
would  perhaps  have  broken  oflf  the  friendship 
between  the  two  girls.  Mr.  Smith  admits 
that  the  girls  probably  got  together  and  had  a 
good  laugh  at  Dickens'  expense  after  it^  was 
all  over.  However,  differences  of  opinion 
must  always  exist,  and  after  all  perhaps  it  is 
best  merely  to  present  the  facts  and  leave  the 
judicial  functions  to  the  reader.  Therefore, 
in  the  language  of  the  lawyer,  I  rest  the  case 
on  the  evidence. 


[xi 


hArisiMii.K  OK  i'K.S(  11.  sKKi'iH  uK.,;CHARLES    IMCKKNS, — 

HKK  K  rOFOK  H     VNtUBUSHEO. 


MAUf'A.lH  I'i/"  I      AAxHOlAHAli 


■"^^ 


THE  DICKENS-KOLLE  LETTERS 

Edited  by  HARRY  B.  SMITH 

In  that  valuable  contribution  to  modern  biog- 
raphy, Charles  Dickens  and  Maria  Beadnell. 
Private  Correspondence,  Professor  George 
Pierce  Baker,  who  performed  the  editorial 
work  in  a  manner  deserving  the  gratitude  of 
every  lover  of  Dickens,  remarks :  — 

"It  is  reported  that  some  ten  years  ago  a 
series  of  letters  from  Dickens  to  the  friend  of 
his  youth,  Henry  Kolle,  changed  hands  in  Bir- 
mingham, England.  The  present  editor  hopes 
that  the  publication  of  the  letters  in  this  book 
may  bring  this  set  to  light,  for  they  should 
supplement  and  explain  the  letters  here  given." 

The  letters  referred  to  by  Professor  Baker 
are  those  contained  in  the  present  volume. 
They  were  unknown  to  Forster,  who  ignores 
Kolle  even  as  he  disregards  several  other  close 
friends  of  Dickens.  In  some  instances  Forster 
quarreled  with  men  who  were  known  and 


liked  by  his  great  friend,  and  this  led  to  the 
omission  of  their  names  from  the  biography ; 
though  this  was  not  the  case  with  Kolle, 
whose  intimacy  with  Dickens  ceased  at  about 
the  time  the  famous  friendship  with  Forster 
began.  No  reference  is  made  to  Kolle  by 
either  James  Payn  or  Robert  Langton  in  the 
monographs  on  Dickens'  early  life.  This  cor- 
respondence, however,  tells  its  own  story  of 
confidence  and  comradeship. 

It  cannot  be  claimed  for  the  letters  in  the 
present  volume  that  they  equal  the  Beadnell 
correspondence  in  emotional  sentiment  or  in 
what  may  be  called  dramatic  interest.  In 
these  qualities  the  letters  to  Miss  Beadnell 
(and  later  to  Mrs.  Winter)  probably  surpass 
any  series  ever  written  by  Dickens,  though 
there  are  many  single  examples  equally  vital 
and  self-revealing.  Such,  for  instance,  are  the 
ones  which  Dickens  wrote  at  the  culmination  of 
his  domestic  infelicities, —those  strange  let- 
ters which  tended  to  destroy  "  the  greatest  of 
Dickens'  fictions  —  himself ."  Most  of  these 
are  unpublished,  and  some  are  to  be  found  in 
American  collections. 

The  correspondence  with  Kolle,  it  is  thought, 
has  a  distinct  interest  of  its  own  and  contrib- 

[2] 


utes  something  to  Dickens'  biography,  although 
it  gives  a  sketch  of  a  period  rather  than  the 
complete  chapter  supplied  by  the  Beadnell 
group.  Some  of  the  present  series  are  the 
earliest  known  letters  of  Dickens ;  others  have 
a  direct  connection  with  the  love  affair  with 
Maria  Beadnell ;  many  of  them,  in  a  few  sen- 
tences, give  a  more  graphic  idea  of  the  life  of 
the  author  as  a  young  man  than  any  corre- 
spondence or  reminiscences  yet  published. 
They  are  redolent  of  the  joys  and  dreams  of 
youth  and  not  untinged  by  its  occasional  sad- 
ness. The  first  of  the  letters  was  written  in 
1830;  the  last  of  the  early  series  in  183^. 
After  the  latter  date  Dickens  and  Kolle,  for 
twenty-five  years,  held  little  if  any  communi- 
cation. In  18^9,  four  years  after  the  reappear- 
ance of  Maria  Beadnell,  Kolle  wrote  to  his  old 
friend,  and  again  in  186^.  The  novelist's  an- 
swers to  these  two  later  letters  form  a  part  of 
the  present  collection. 

Of  Dickens  after  the  "  Pickwick "  period 
the  biographical  information  is  as  complete 
as  the  most  exacting  specialist  could  wish. 
Of  the  innumerable  volumes  of  mid-Victorian 
Memoirs  and  Reminiscences  of  "  people  of  im- 
portance in  their  day,"  a  large  number  make 

[31 


their  contribution  of  side-lights  and  anecdote. 
Of  Dickens   and  his  family  in   the    period 
between    the    blacking   warehouse   and   the 
Sketches  by  Bo{,  comparatively  little  is  known. 
Among  the  published   letters   there   is  but 
one  written  during  his  days  of   newspaper 
reporting.      It    is   believed    that    the    corre- 
spondence, now  for  the   first  time  printed, 
adds  to  our  knowledge  of  Dickens  as  a  youth 
in  that  interesting  period  when  he  was  emerg- 
ing from  obscurity  and  coming  into  his  own. 
An  English  critic,  who  is  much  cleverer  than 
a  mere  critic  has  any  right  to  be,  has  thought 
it  worth  his  while,  at  this  late  day,  to  devote 
a  book  to  an  appreciation  of  Dickens.    In  this 
work  Mr.  Chesterton  declares  that  "  whatever 
the  word  '  great '  means,  Dickens  is  that."    It 
might  be  added  that  whatever  the  word  "  pop- 
ular" means  Dickens  is  that  also.    Popular 
he  has  been  continuously  from  the  publication 
of  the  Sketches  by  Bo{  to  the  present  day. 
There  have  been  at  all  times  critics  hostile  to 
his  novels  and  people  who  have  declared  that 
they  could  not  read  Dickens ;  but  their  minor- 
ity report  has  generally  taken  the  form  of  a 
protest  against  his  acknowledged  popularity. 
During  the  year  1906,  a  single    London 
[4] 


publishing  house  sold  four  hundred  and  fifty 
thousand  copies  of  novels  by  Dickens,  and  it 
has  been  estimated  that  in  that  year  fifteen 
hundred  thousand  copies  of  his  books  were 
sold  in  England  alone.  It  is  probable  that  as 
many  more  were  sold  in  the  United  States, 
Canada  and  Australia,  and  it  is  within  bounds 
to  say  that  the  annual  sales  of  the  Dickens 
novels  amount  to  three  millions  of  copies. 
About  three  hundred  and  fifty  articles  dealing 
with  Charles  Dickens  and  his  writings  are 
published  in  magazines  and  newspapers  every 
year.  An  incomplete  collection  of  these  in 
the  Guildhall  Library  numbers  over  ten  thou- 
sand items.  Mr.  Percy  Fitzgerald,  starting  to 
collect  all  the  printed  matter  relating  to 
"Pickwick"  alone,  soon  found  that  he  had 
"  nearly  a  roomful."  A  magazine  is  devoted  to 
Dickens  literature,  clubs  and  fellowships  are 
organized  in  his  honor,  and  the  library  of 
Dickensiana  is  beginning  to  rival  in  extent  the 
literature  of  Shakespear  and  Napoleon.^ 
Dickens'  principal  works  have  been  trans- 

1  In  1838,  "Pickwick"  was  attacked  by  the  Quarterly  Rroierv 
which  declared  that  "  indications  were  not  wanting  that  the  peculiar 
vein  of  humor  which  has  hitherto  yielded  such  attractive  metal,  is 
worn  out."  When  this  was  written  by  an  eminent  critical  author- 
ity, Dickens  had  published  nothing  but  the  Sketches  by  Bo^. 

[5] 


lated  into  every  European  language.  He  is 
read  by  all  sorts  and  conditions  of  men, 
women  and  children.  Lord  Jeffreys,  Charles 
Lever,  and  Walter  Savage  Landor  wept  over 
Little  Nell  (though  Mr.  Andrew  Lang  makes 
merry  over  her).  Lever  declared  Dickens  to  be 
"  the  greatest  imaginative  writer  since  Shake- 
spear,"  and  Mr.  Chesterton,  most  modern  of 
critics,  also  corroborates  this  in  a  way  when 
he  says  that  claiming  to  have  contributed 
an  idea  to  Dickens  is  like  saying  one  has 
added  a  glass  of  water  to  Niagara.  Swin- 
burne, who  was  nothing  if  not  fastidious, 
wrote  an  almost  rhapsodical  defense  of  Dick- 
ens against  his  academic  detractors.  The 
shop-girl  on  her  way  to  work  is  quite  as  likely 
to  be  reading  Copperfield  as  Laura  Jean.  The 
messenger  boy  taking  his  time  with  a  '*  rush  " 
message,  if  not  enthralled  by  Old  Sleuth,  is 
probably  delayed  by  Oliver  Twist.  At  least  a 
dozen  times  the  writer  has  seen  elevator  boys 
reading  Dickens.  Once  —  in  Boston  —  one 
was  observed  reading  Thackeray. 

It  is  a  proof  of  the  universal  appeal  of  Dick- 
ens that  he  not  only  has  this  vogue  with  the 
masses,  but  is  also  pre-eminently  a  collector's 
author.    Judging  from  observation  and  from 

[6] 


information  supplied  by  book-sellers,  it  may 
be  confidently  stated  that  fully  nine-tenths  of 
the  collectors  of  modern  books  collect  first 
editions  of  Dickens.  The  name  of  "  Boz " 
may  not  lead  all  the  rest,  but  it  is  pretty  sure 
to  be  upon  the  scroll,  whether  the  collector  be 
a  Tennysonian  or  a  Shelleyan,  a  disciple  of  St. 
Charles  or  a  devotee  of  the  Brownings. 

The  fact  is  that  if  one  is  interested  in  mod- 
ern literature  at  all,  and  has  any  of  the  in- 
stincts of  a  collector,  he  can  hardly  escape 
being  a  Dickensian.  This  is  particularly  true 
for  the  reason  that  book-collectors,  in  spite  of 
their  reputation  for  solemnity,  are  a  race  of 
humorists.  Reference  is  made  to  the  collect- 
ors of  modern  books,  not  to  those  who  are  on 
the  passenger  list  of  Brandf  s  Ship  of  Fools, 
who  buy  books  which  they  cannot  read.  In- 
deed if  one  must  have  an  answer  for  the 
Philistine's  question,  ''  M^by  first  editions?'' 
one  can  find  it  readily  in  the  case  of  the  Dick- 
ens books.  Apart  from  the  unique  form  in 
which  they  were  published,  the  illustrations 
as  they  first  appeared  make  these  editions  in- 
finitely more  desirable  than  any  de  luxe  vol- 
umes ever  printed  for  the  delusion  of  the  unco 
rich. 

[7] 


Perhaps  next  to  Lamb,  Dickens  as  a  person- 
ality is  the  most  lovable  of  authors.  We  love 
Elia  in  spite  of  —  nay,  because  of  —  his  pecu- 
liarities and  his  little  vices ;  and  as  we  grow  to 
know  Dickens  through  the  study  of  his  works, 
his  letters,  and  the  many  books  about  him,  we 
love  him  in  spite  of  the  defects  in  his  character, 
without  which  he  would  be  a  demigod  in- 
stead of  the  hearty,  human,  friendly  creature 
he  is.  Loving  Dickens  as  we  do,  feeling  that 
we  know  him  better  than  we  know  many  of 
our  friends,  any  news  out  of  shadow-land  is 
welcome  when  it  can  tell  us  anything  of  the 
man  that  brings  him  nearer  to  us.  For  this 
reason  the  printing  of  the  Dickens-Beadnell 
letters  was  an  event  of  importance  to  all  ad- 
mirers of  the  novelist  and  all  readers  of  biog- 
raphy,—more  vivid  and  suggestive  perhaps 
than  any  one  chapter  in  that  indispensable 
biography  which  has  been  rudely  called  Dick- 
ens' Life  of  Forster. 

The  earliest  known  autograph  of  Charles 
Dickens  is  a  note  written  in  his  thirteenth 
year  to  Owen  P.  Thomas,  his  classmate  at 
Wellington  House  Academy.  This  note  would 
have  been  a  formidable  weapon  in  the  hand 
of  Sergeant  Buzfuz,  who  could  have  read  into 

[81 


it  crime  and  conspiracy,  even  as  he  interpreted 
the  famous  "  warming-pan  "  letter  as  evidence 
of  deliberate  and  systematic  villainy.  To  the 
unsuspicious  non-legal  mind,  however,  the 
note  indicates  nothing  worse  than  juvenile 
humor  and  an  eye  to  business.  It  begins 
with  an  apology  for  neglecting  to  return 
Owen  Thomas'  "Leg,"  the  writer  supposing 
that  in  the  interim  Owen  has  "  used  a  wooden 
one."  Dickens  assures  his  friend  that  since 
it  has  been  in  his  possession  "  the  leg  has 
been  weighed  every  Saturday  night ; "  and  the 
note  concludes  with  an  offer  to  sell  a  school- 
book  "  at  a  greatly  reduced  price,  much  cheaper 
in  comparison  than  a  leg." 

What  an  opportunity  for  the  redoubtable 
Buzfuz  I 

"  Gentlemen  of  the  jury,  I  ask  you,  as  hus- 
bands and  fathers,  what  is  this  youthful  des- 
perado doing  with  his  comrade's  leg?  By 
what  dark  deed  did  he  possess  himself  of  that 
graceful  member  of  which  each  one  of  us 
poor  mortals  claims  his  allotted  share  of  two  ? 
And  —  mark  you  —  why  should  this  Dickens, 
with  a  depravity  appalling  in  one  so  young,  go 
through  the  wretched  form  of  weighing  his 
wronged  friend's  leg  every  Saturday  night? 

[9j 


Gentlemen,  the  brain  reels,  the  mind  is  baffled 
in  the  presence  of  such  mysteries  as  these." 

Mr.  Thomas,  writing  in  1870,  explained 
that  the  *'Leg"  was  "a  legend  of  something, 
a  pamphlet  romance  I  had  lent  him."  But  the 
Buzfuzzian  mind  would  have  shattered  this 
shallow  explanation.  Why  should  a  "  legend 
of  something"  be  weighed  every  Saturday 
night  ?  As  Forster  says,  "  There  is  some 
underlying  whim  or  fun  in  the  '  Leg'  allusions 
which  Mr.  Thomas  has  overlooked." 

The  next  writing  in  order  of  date  is  found 
in  a  "petty  cash  book"  kept  by  Dickens 
when,  at  the  age  of  fifteen,  he  was  employed 
in  the  office  of  Mr.  Edward  Blackmore,  So- 
licitor, of  Lincoln's  Inn  Fields.  This  interest- 
ing memento  was  in  the  collection  of  Mr. 
William  Wright,  dispersed  at  auction  in  1899. 
Among  the  entries  in  Dickens'  hand  is  the 
charge  to  himself  of  a  weekly  salary  of  thir- 
teen shillings  and  sixpence.  Many  years  after- 
ward Mr.  Blackmore  recorded  his  memories  of 
young  Dickens,  who  it  appears  was  not  too 
assiduous  in  his  routine  of  office  duties,  but 
inclined  to  waste  time  at  theatres,  where,  with 
a  fellow  clerk  named  Potter,  he  was  even  sus- 
pected of  "  going  on  "  in  minor  parts.  It  is 
[  10  ] 


highly  probable  that  he  did  so,  as  the  Sketches 
by  Bo{  show  a  familiarity  with  h'fe  behind  the 
scenes  which  could  have  been  obtained  only 
by  experience.  It  is  curious  to  note  that  in 
this  old  account  book,  kept  by  Dickens  in  his 
fifteenth  year,  are  several  names  which  were 
afterward  used  by  him  for  characters  in  his 
novels. 

In  editing  the  Dickens -Beadnell  corre- 
spondence for  The  Bibliophile  Society,  Pro- 
fessor Baker  refers  to  the  scarcity  of  early 
letters  of  Dickens.  Until  the  discovery  of  the 
letters  to  Miss  Beadnell,  only  four  letters  prior 
to  1836  were  published,  and  these  were  of  no 
great  interest.  The  Beadnell  correspondence 
belongs  to  the  year  1833,  while  several  of  the 
letters  in  the  present  volume  were  written  in 
1830  and  1831.  These  are  believed  to  be 
the  earliest  Dickens  letters  in  existence.  That 
still  earlier  ones  may  be  discovered  is  pos- 
sible, but  hardly  probable.  There  may  lurk 
in  some  dusty  drawer  or  closet  in  an  old 
London  house  the  letters  that  Dickens  wrote 
to  his  fellow  clerk,  the  facetious  and  frolic- 
some Potter,  companion  of  his  secret  ad- 
ventures among  the  cheap  theatres.  There 
may  be  in  existence  notes  written  to  his 
[11] 


schoolmates  at  Wellington  House.  Possibly 
some  early  letters  to  members  of  his  family 
may  have  been  preserved.  Of  autographs  of 
a  somewhat  later  date  (18H-183^)  there  may 
be  future  discoveries.  In  1834  or  183^  Dick- 
ens became  acquainted  with  the  Hogarth  fam- 
ily, and  he  undoubtedly  wrote  letters  to  Miss 
Catherine  Hogarth,  his  betrothed,  and  to  her 
sisters.  He  must  have  written  occasionally 
to  Thomas  Beard,  who  was  best  man  at  his 
wedding,  and  who  seems  to  have  become  his 
chum  after  Kolle's  marriage. 

It  is  likely,  however,  that  Dickens  collectors 
have  come  to  the  end  of  their  treasure  trove. 
In  1870  the  editors  of  the  published  corre- 
spondence were  able  to  obtain  no  early  letters, 
and  of  late  years  the  agents  of  London  book- 
sellers and  autograph  dealers  have  made  dili- 
gent search  without  finding  any  material  of 
value.  After  the  publication  of  the  Sketches 
by  ^o{,  Dickens  became  a  personage,  and  his 
correspondents  were  more  inclined  to  preserve 
his  letters.  Specimens  written  in  1836  and 
1837  are  occasionally  met  with,  though  they 
are  by  no  means  common. 

Shortly  before  the  appearance  of  The  Biblio- 
phile Society's  volume,  Charles  Dickens  and 

[12  1 


Maria  Beadnell,  the  present  writer  prepared  for 
a  magazine  an  article  regarding  the  Dickens- 
Kolle  correspondence.'  At  that  time  he  was 
not  acquainted  with  the  contents  of  the  Bead- 
nell  letters  and  was  compelled  to  guess  and 
theorize  regarding  much  that  is  in  the  Kolle 
correspondence.  A  portion  of  the  article  thus 
written  is  here  quoted :  — 

"The  chief  interest  in  the  Dickens-Kolle 
correspondence  is  the  light  thrown  upon  an 
early  love  affair.    Dickens  was  under  twenty 
at  the  time ;  yet  this  was  no  ordinary  boyish 
flirtation,  but  an  enduring  love.    The  writings 
of  later  years,  the  confidences  to  Mr.  Forster, 
contain  so  many  references  to  this  early  ro- 
mance that  it  must  be  considered,  like  the 
death  of  Mary  Hogarth,  an  event  that  had 
a  life-long  influence  upon  the  mind  of  the 
author  and  the  heart  of  the  man.    The  iden- 
tity of  this  first  love,  this  real  Dora,  is  now 
revealed.     She  was  one  of  the  two^  Misses 
Beadnell.     Kolle  was  engaged  to  the  elder; 
Dickens   fell    desperately  in    love   with   the 
younger.    Kolle's  suit  prospered  ;  but  that  ot 

1  This  article  was  not  published,  -  it  having  been  bought  back 
from  the  magazine  to  which  it  was  sold,  -and  .s  here  printed  m 
part  for  the  first  time. 

2  There  were  three,-  Anne,  Margaret,  and  Maria. 

[13] 


Dickens  was  an  example  of  the  proverbial 
roughness  of  the  course  of  true  love.  The 
father  of  Miss  Beadnell  was  well-to-do,  and 
it  is  more  than  likely  that  the  parents  did  not 
view  with  approval  the  courtship  of  a  young 
reporter  with  a  small  salary  and  no  prospects 
worth  mentioning.  Kolle,  however,  was  the 
typical  young  man  bound  to  make  his  way  in 
the  world ;  he  was  employed  in  a  bank.  It  is 
clear  that  Dickens  was  looked  upon  as  a  party 
whom  Mrs.  Malaprop  would  have  classified  as 
'illegible.'  The  letters  indicate  that  at  the 
Beadnell  home  he  was  unwelcome,  and  that 
when  he  found  his  room  was  preferred  to  his 
company,  he  called  upon  the  favored  Kolle  to 
serve  as  letter-carrier  and  intercessor.  ...  It 
is  quite  evident  that  Dickens  sent  by  Kolle  a 
written  proposal  of  marriage  to  Miss  Beadnell. 
Delivered  on  a  Saturday,  this  proposal  was  not 
answered  till  the  following  Thursday.  Doubt- 
less the  Dulcinea  was  deliberating,  deciding 
whether  a  rebellion  against  parental  authority 
were  worth  while.  It  is  likely  that  she  had 
some  fondness  for  the  young  man  who  was 
in  every  way  attractive ;  but  she  was  older 
than  Dickens,  as  he  admits  in  one  of  his  later 
allusions  to  her,  and  she  was  made  prudent 

[14] 


by  reflecting  upon  his  financial  situation.  A 
second  appeal,  or  events  following  upon  it, 
resulted  in  a  misunderstanding.  Dickens  at- 
tributes this  to  envious  tongues.  Mischief 
had  been  made  and  Lady  Sneerwell  had  been 
at  work.  One  of  Miss  Beadnell's  friends,  a 
Miss  Marianne  Leigh,  was  a  cause  of  jealousy 
and  disputes.  .  .  ." 

It  will  be  seen  that  the  letters  to  Kolle  sup- 
plied a  fairly  accurate  key  to  the  then  unpub- 
lished Beadnell  correspondence. 

The  collector's  history  of  these  autographs  is 
as  follows :  It  will  be  remembered  that  William 
Henry  Kolle  married  Anne  Beadnell,  sister  of 
Dickens'  inamorata.  Mrs.  Kolle  died,  and  the 
widower  married  again.  Kolle  died  in  1881. 
In  February,  1890,  his  widow  oflfered  for  sale  to 
a  London  dealer  the  letters  written  by  Dickens 
to  her  husband.  They  were  promptly  pur- 
chased, and  in  response  to  the  dealer's  request 
for  information  concerning  them,  Mrs.  Kolle 
wrote :  — 

West  Brighton, 
February  12, 1890. 

Dear  Sir,  —  I  beg  to  acknowledge,  with  thanks,  re- 
ceipt of  postal  orders,  and  1  am  most  willing  to  answer 
}'Our  inquiries.     My  husband  prized  the  letters  higlily  in 
remembrance  of  his  youthful  friendship  with  Charles 
[15] 


Dickens.    He  always  kept  them  locked  up  in  a  drawer 
to  which  even  I  had  not  access  till  after  his  death  nine 
years  ago.     They  remained  in  the  same  drawer  un- 
touched until  about  three  weeks  ago,  when  I  perused 
them  for  the  first  time,  and  it  occurred  to  me  that  as 
autographs  they  might  be  worth  money  —  as  you  phrased 
it  — and  so  I  got  the  idea  of  sending  them  to  an  auto- 
graph sale,  but  your  offer  altered  this  project.    My  hus- 
band and  C.  Dickens  first  met  at  the  house  of  a  mutual 
friend,  became  attached  to  two  sisters  of  the  name  of 
Beadnell,  and  so  the  intimacy  commenced.    My  husband 
was  at  that  time  engaged  in  a  banking  house  in  the  city, 
but  soon  after  his  first  marriage  entered  into  commercial 
pursuits.     C.  Dickens,  as  everyone  knows,  was  strug- 
gling for  fame  as  an  author,  and  so  the  friends  diverged 
into  different  lines  of  life,  but  the  old  kind  feelings  still 
existed,  as  you  will  see  by  two  letters  which  I  enclose  for 
your  perusal,  and  which  my  step-daughter,  whom  you 
saw  the  other  evening,  prizes  '*  above  rubies,"  although 
they  dashed  her  hopes  of  becoming  a  poetess.     Please 
take  great  care  of  the  two  letters  which  I  have  borrowed, 
as  my  daughter  does  not  wish  them  creased  unnecessarily. 
...  My  husband  assisted  on  one  or  two  occasions  at 
some  private  amateur  theatricals  in  the  house  of  the 
elder  Mr.  Dickens. 

Yours  truly, 

S.  J.  KOLLE 

There  was  some  further  correspondence  be- 
tween the  London  dealer  and  Mrs.  Kolle,  and 
eventually  Miss  Anne  Kolle  (named  after  her 
[16] 


mother,  Anne  Beadnell)  sold  the  two  later 
letters  addressed  by  Dickens  to  her  father. 
Immediately  after  concluding  the  purchase  of 
the  collection,  the  book-seller  sent  a  descrip- 
tion of  the  contents  to  the  late  Augustin  Daly 
and  oflFered  them  to  him.  Mr.  Daly  purchased 
them  and  had  them  bound  in  a  folio  volume 
together  with  a  miscellaneous  collection  of 
autograph  letters  of  literary  celebrities.  There 
was  no  attempt  at  classifying  the  contents 
and  the  volume  bore  no  descriptive  title. 

It  may  be  doubted  whether  Mr.  Daly  him- 
self knew  or  appreciated  the  prize  he  had  ac- 
quired ;  for,  although  he  took  a  lively  interest 
in  his  collection,  he  had  such  quantities  of 
letters,  books,  and  prints,  that  to  have  known 
and  loved  them  all  would  have  left  him  no 
time  for  the  exacting  and  multifarious  duties 
of  a  theatrical  manager.  In  fact,  Mr.  Daly 
once  laughingly  admitted  to  the  writer  that  he 
did  not  know  what  he  had.  He  was,  perhaps, 
more  interested  in  collecting  than  in  his  col- 
lection, in  the  chase  than  in  the  quarry.  Mr. 
Daly  acquired  the  Dickens-Kolle  letters  in 
1890.  In  March,  1900,  the  Daly  collection 
was  sold  at  auction  in  New  York.  The  de- 
scription in  the  catalogue  of  the  volume  con- 

[17] 


taining  the  Kolle  letters  gave  no  indication  of 
the  unique  interest  of  the  correspondence  and 
the  book  sold  for  a  moderate  price. 

The  letter  of  the  London  dealer  offering  the 
autographs  to  Mr.  Daly  was  a  part  of  the 
"  lot "  and  in  it  the  number  of  the  letters  to 
Kolle  is  distinctly  stated  to  be  twenty-five. 
Of  these,  twenty-three  were  described  as  early 
letters  and  the  other  two  as  dated  18^9  and 
186^.  When  the  volume  appeared  in  the 
auction  room  it  contained  but  twenty-one  of 
the  early  letters.  Two  of  them  had  mysteri- 
ously disappeared,  nor  was  there  any  evidence 
of  their  having  been  in  the  book  at  any  time. 
What  has  become  of  them?  Mr.  Daly  had 
several  extra-illustrated  volumes  of  Dickens- 
iana.  Some  of  these  contained  a  considerable 
number  of  Dickens'  autograph  letters.  He 
employed  a  specialist  to  do  his  extra-illustrat- 
ing, the  selecting  and  preparing  of  material. 
The  Kolle  letters  were  delivered  to  Mr.  Daly 
in  their  original  condition,  not  bound  in  book 
form.  It  is  quite  likely  that  in  choosing  the 
material  for  some  extra-illustrated  work,  like 
the  Daly  copy  of  Forster's  Life,  the  two 
letters  now  missing  were  included  as  speci- 
mens of  an  early  period.  It  might  be  worth 
[18] 


while  for  the  possessors  of  some  of  the  extra- 
illustrated  books  from  the  Daly  collection  to 
examine  their  contents  carefully  with  a  view 
to  detecting  these  missing  autographic  links. 
The  hope  expressed  by  Professor  Baker  that 
the  publication  of  the  Beadnell  correspondence 
might  reveal  the  letters  to  Kolle  is  echoed  here 
with  regard  to  these  two  wandering  missives. 

Like  the  early  Beadnell  letters,  those  of 
Dickens  to  Kolle,  with  one  exception,  bear  no 
date,  only  the  day  of  the  week.  The  one  ex- 
ception is  dated  January  ^,  1833.  Two  of  the 
letters  are  postmarked  1833.  The  water- 
marks on  several  are  1830  and  1831.  The 
date  of  the  one  letter  and  the  postmarks  on 
the  two  are  important,  as  they  prove  that 
most  of  the  other  letters  were  written  before 
January  S,  1833. 

The  verses,  Tbe  Bill  of  Fare,  printed  in  the 
Beadnell  correspondence,  fix  exactly  the  month 
and  the  year  in  which  Dickens  fell  in  love 
with  Maria  Beadnell.  That  the  verses  were 
written  in  1831  is  shown  by  the  reference  to 
the  marriage  of  David  Lloyd  and  Margaret 
Beadnell,  which  occurred  in  April,  1831.  That 
it  was  in  the  autumn  or  winter  of  1831  is 
shown  by  the  lines  speaking  of  Lloyd:  — 

[19] 


That  when  he  last  summer  from  Paris  came  home 
(1  think  't  was  his  marriage  induced  him  to  roam). 

In  the  poem  Dickens  says  of  himself,  — 

Charles  Dickens,  who  in  our  feast  plays  a  part, 
Is  a  young  summer  cabbage  without  any  heart ;  — 
Not  that  he 's  heartless,  but  because,  as  folks  say, 
He  lost  his  twelve  months  ago  from  last  May. 

*'  Twelve  months  ago  from  last  May  "  would 
mean  May,  1830.  In  this  manner  Dickens 
himself  fixes,  beyond  reasonable  doubt,  the 
date  of  his  conquest  by  Dora.* 

In  his  letter  to  John  Forster  in  18^^,  in  an- 
swer to  the  latter's  questioning  the  existence 
of  a  Dora  in  real  life,  the  novelist  states  that 
his  love  for  the  original  Dora  began  "  when  I 
was  Charley's  age  "  and  "  excluded  every  other 
idea  from  my  mind  for  four  years."  As  Miss 
Beadnell  fmally  rejected  Dickens  in  May,  1833, 
and  as  he  admits  that  he  lost  his  heart  to  her 
in  May  1830,  this  allows  a  twelvemonth  for 
recovery  from  the  blow  that  was  so  decidedly 
a  blessing  in  disguise.  It  is  unlikely  that 
Dickens'  own  evidence  in  the  poem  and  in 
his  letter  to  Forster  is  inexact.    The  love  af- 

1  Forster  gives  1829  as  the  date  of  the  first  appearance  of  the 
"  real  Dora."    Vol.  I,  71. 

[20] 


fair  was  too  important  an  event  in  his  life  for 
him  to  be  in  doubt  —  even  twenty  years  later 
—  whether  it  lasted  four  years  or  three.  The 
poem,  The  Bill  of  Fare,  obviously  was  writ- 
ten to  impress  Maria  Beadnell,  to  express  his 
devotion  in  a  manner  which,  if  regarded  as 
too  bold,  could  be  passed  oflf  as  a  jest,  and  in- 
cidentally to  show  her  and  her  friends  that  he 
was  a  clever  fellow.  By  mentioning  the  time, 
"  twelve  months  ago  from  last  May,"  Dickens 
may  have  intended  to  tell  Maria  that  he  had 
fallen  in  love  with  her  at  first  sight,  as  they 
may  have  met  for  the  first  time  during  that 
month.  At  all  events,  it  is  not  likely  that  he 
had  known  her  more  than  a  month  or  two 
before  losing  his  heart.  He  was  eighteen 
years  old  and  even  more  impulsive  and  im- 
pressionable than  most  youths  of  that  age. 
It  is  practically  certain  that  Dickens  was  in- 
troduced to  the  Beadnell  family  at  some  time 
between  January  and  May,  1830.  In  all  prob- 
ability, he  met  the  Beadnells  through  Kolle. 
The  letter  of  Mrs.  S.  J.  Kolle  indicates  that 
her  husband  and  Dickens  met  at  the  house  of 
a  common  friend  and  afterward  became  ac- 
quainted with  the  Beadnell  family.  Mrs. 
Kolle  states  that  her  husband  was  at  that  time 

[21] 


"  engaged  in  a  banking  house  in  the  city,  but 
soon  after  his  first  marriage  entered  into  com- 
mercial pursuits ; "  that  is  to  say,  he  became  a 
quilt-printer.  With  what  bank  young  Kolle 
was  connected  is  not  ascertainable,  but  it  is 
quite  likely  that  he  was  a  clerk  in  the  establish- 
ment of  Smith,  Payne  and  Smith,  in  which 
George  Beadnell  held  a  responsible  position. 
The  letters  to  Kolle  furnish  evidence  that 
the  two  young  men  first  met  in  the  spring  of 
1830,  and  the  two  letters  following  may  be 
ascribed  to  that  date.  Dickens  could  not  have 
known  Kolle  for  any  length  of  time,  for  in 
both  letters  he  misspells  the  name  of  his  new 
friend,  writing  it  with  a  terminal  "  ie."  This 
might  be  regarded  as  a  nickname  or  a  playful 
version  of  the  name,  were  it  not  for  the  fact 
that  both  these  letters  are  written  in  a  com- 
paratively formal  style,  while,  as  the  others  of 
the  series  become  more  familiar  and  indicate 
intimate  friendship,  Kolle's  name  is  correctly 
written.  In  these  two  letters  the  handwriting 
is  considerably  more  unformed  and  juvenile 
than  in  those  known  to  have  been  written  in 
1832  and  1833.  It  is,  in  fact,  quite  a  boyish 
hand.  That  these  were  not  written  earlier 
than  the  spring  of  1830  is  shown  by  Dickens' 

[22] 


I     K    ^ 

^         V  V     / 


..$  ^, 


■A     ■' 


<^<        $r/c         x^. 


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statement  that  he  can  name  no  night  to  go 
out  to  play  "until  the  House  is  up."  The 
novelist  himself  is  the  authority  for  the  state- 
ment that  he  entered  the  reporters'  gallery 
"when  not  yet  18."  There  are  two  veiled 
allusions  to  the  Beadnell  family.  In  one  letter 
Dickens  expresses  his  envy  of  Kolle's  devotions 
[to  Anne  Beadnell]  and  in  the  other  he  sends 
his  "  best  remembrances  to  (?) ; "  the  interroga- 
tion point  being  a  cryptic  reference  to  Maria 
Beadnell.  The  allusion  to  the  poor  accommo- 
dations at  Cecil  street  also  points  to  the  date 
1830.  The  following  letter,  being  the  more 
formal  in  expression,  is  probably  the  earlier  of 
the  two.  It  is  the  earliest  Dickens  letter  known, 
with  the  single  exception  of  the  schoolboy 
note  written  at  Wellington  House  Academy.  — 

My  dear  Kollie,  —  I  owe  you  ten  thousand  apologies 
for  not  having  seen  you  last  night,  but  the  fact  is  that  I 
found  out  late  in  the  evening  that  1  could  not  leave  the 
House  until  a  quarter  past  ten,  and  I  thought  it  would  be 
useless  to  endeavor  to  make  my  way  into  the  city  at  that 
hour.  As  I  was  not  aware  of  the  melancholy  fact  in  suf- 
ficient time  to  send  for  you  (1  mean  to  you,  but  1  do  not 
like  scratching  out)  1  hope  I  need  not  ask  you  to  excuse  the 
apparent  inattention  on  my  part.  It  is  equally  unneces- 
sary to  add  that  I  was  very  much  disappointed,  as  1  looked 
forward  to  having  a  very  comfortable  couple  of  hours. 
[23] 


I  fear,  until  the  House  is  up,  I  can  name  no  certain 
night  on  which  I  can  go  to  play,  except  Saturday.  How- 
ever, I  leave  the  selection  of  another  day  to  your  taste, 
always  promising  that  if  1  accept  your  next  invitation,  no 
consideration  shall  induce  me  to  depart  from  it. 

With  my  best  remembrances  to  (?),  believe  me,  my 

dear  KoUie, 

Very  truly  yours, 

Charles  Dickens 

I  see  there  are  two  superfluous  I's  in  this  note,  but  I  sup- 
pose you  are  not  particular  to  a  shade.  The  sun  is  so 
obscured  that  I  intend  living  under  the  planet  no  longer 
than  Saturday  week  next. 

It  will  be  observed  that  the  tone  of  the  note 
is  rather  formal  and  apologetic.  The  writer 
regrets  his  failure  to  keep  an  appointment; 
explains  a  slip  in  expression  and  a  superabun- 
dance of  capital  I's.  It  is  possible,  of  course, 
that  the  "  best  remembrances  to  (?) "  may  not 
refer  to  Maria  Beadnell ;  but  if,  as  seems  cer- 
tain, the  letter  was  written  in  the  spring  of 
1830,  it  is  more  than  likely  that  the  allusion  is 
to  the  young  woman  to  whom  Dickens,  by  his 
own  confession,  lost  his  heart  in  the  May  of 
that  year.  The  next  letter  was  written  a  few 
days  later.  In  this  also  Kolle's  name  is  incor- 
rectly spelled.  Of  the  place  from  which  this 
was  written,  North  End,  Mr.  F.  G.  Kitton 

[24] 


says :  "  Certain  letters  written  to  an  intimate 
friend  indicate  sucli  addresses  as  North  End 
(PFulham)  and  Fitzroy  street."  The  letter 
following  —  which  is  the  one  to  which  Mr. 
Kitton  refers  — was  apparently  written  while 
Dickens  was  enjoying  a  holiday.  The  whole 
tone  of  it  indicates  that  he  has  no  business 
cares  to  prevent  his  enjoying  himself  in  his 
own  way.  That  it  was  written  while  on  a 
vacation  is  shown,  too,  by  the  fact  that  the 
writer  speaks  of  having  left  one  place  of  resi- 
dence and  not  yet  having  "  fixed  upon  *  a  local 
habitation  and  a  name  1 '  " 

North  End, 
Friday  evening'. 

My  dear  Kollie,  —  I  have  great  pleasure  in  being  able 
to  assure  you  that  I  shall  be  perfectly  disengaged  on  Sun- 
day next,  and  shall  expect  you.  I  always  rise  out  here 
by  seven,  and  therefore  you  may  safely  wend  your  way 
here  before  one,  if  you  can. 

In  reply  to  your  inquiry  respecting  a  sizable  pony,  I 
have  great  satisfaction  in  being  able  to  say  that  1  can  pro- 
cure you  an  "  'oss  "  which  1  have  had  once  or  twice  since 
I  have  been  here.  I  am  a  poor  judge  of  distance,  but  I 
should  certainly  say  that  your  legs  would  be  oflf  the 
ground  when  you  are  on  his  back.  To  look  at  the  ani- 
mal in  question  you  would  think  (with  the  exception  of 
dog's  meat)  there  was  no  earthly  purpose  to  which  he 
could  be  applied.  But  when  you  try  him,  joking  apart, 
[25] 


I  will  pledge  you  my  veracity,  he  will  beat  any  horse, 
hired  or  private,  that  you  would  see  in  a  morning's  ride. 
I  am  his  especial  patron,  but  on  this  occasion  I  will  pro- 
cure something  smaller  for  myself. 

Pray  come  before  one,  as  I  shall  order  them  to  be  at 
the  door  punctually  at  that  hour,  and  we  can  mount,  dis- 
mount, and  ride  eight  or  ten  miles  without  seeing  a  soul, 
the  peasantry  excepted. 

The  people  at  Cecil  street  put  too  much  water  in  their 
hashes,  lost  a  nutmeg  grater,  attended  on  me  most  mis- 
erably, dirted  the  table  cloth,  &c.,  &c. ;  and  so  (detesting 
petty  miseries)  1  gave  them  warning  and  have  not  yet 
fixed  upon  a  "local  habitation  and  a  name." 

Envying  you  your  devotions,  notwithstanding  the  pil- 
grimage attendant  thereon,  and  wishing  you  every  suc- 
cess and  happiness,  I  remain,  my  dear  Kollie, 
Yours  most  truly, 

Come  early.  Charles  Dickens 

[P.  S.]  I  shall  depend  on  your  staying  all  night.  You 
shall  have  breakfast  by  half  past  seven  next  morning,  as 
I  must  walk  to  town  the  very  first  thing. 

C.  D. 

The  paragraph  preceding  the  signature  al- 
ludes to  Kolle's  courtship  of  Anne  Beadnell, 
and  Dickens'  envy  was  due  to  his  growing 
admiration  for  her  sister,  which  was  already 
an  object  of  parental  disapproval.  In  the  pen 
portrait  of  the  "  sizable  pony  "  there  is  a  sug- 
gestion of  the  gift  for  humorous  description 

[26] 


which  was  soon  to  find  expression  in  the 
Sketches  by  Bo{.  hideed,  it  may  be  surmised 
that  the  animal  was  the  model  for  the  "  im- 
mense brown  horse  displaying  great  symmetry 
of  bone"  which  caused  such  annoyance  to 
Mr.  Pickwick  and  Mr.  Winkle  during  their 
memorable  journey  to  Dingley  Dell. 

Next  in  the  series,  in  order  of  date,  are  six 
letters  written  from  Fitzroy  street.  These  are 
without  date  by  the  writer,  but  the  year  in 
which  they  were  written  can  be  fixed  with  tol- 
erable accuracy.  In  the  case  of  three  of  the 
letters  the  paper  bears  the  water-mark  of  1830. 
The  address  Fitzroy  street  helps  to  establish 
the  date.  Thanks  to  the  researches  of  enthusi- 
astic Dickensians,  and  particularly  to  the  zeal 
of  the  late  F.  G.  Kitton,  the  various  places  of 
residence  of  Dickens  and  his  family  may  be 
accurately  traced  by  anyone  curious  in  such 
matters.  For  the  sake  of  assigning  these  let- 
ters to  their  correct  year,  and  for  the  better 
realization  of  the  circumstances  under  which 
they  were  written,  one  may  briefly  recapitulate 
the  principal  events  in  this  period  of  the  life 
of  Dickens. 

On  removing  to  London  with  his  family  in 
1823,  John  Dickens  lived  first  at  No.  16  Bay- 

[27] 


ham  street  (now  No.  141).  He  removed  from 
there  probably  about  Christmas,  1823 ;  cer- 
tainly not  later  than  January  21,  1824.  Up  to 
Lady  Day,  1824,  Mrs.  Dickens  was  proving 
that  she  would  "  never  desert  Mr.  Micawber " 
by  endeavoring  to  establish  a  school  for  girls 
at  No.  4  Gower  street.  It  was  from  this  house 
that  Dickens,  a  boy  of  eleven,  sallied  forth 
to  distribute  circulars  calling  attention  to  the 
merits  of  the  establishment.  "Yet  nobody 
ever  came  to  school,"  he  wrote  to  Forster, 
*'  nor  do  I  recollect  that  anybody  ever  pro- 
posed to  come." 

From  the  Gower  street  house  John  Dick- 
ens was  taken  to  the  Marshalsea,  and  Charles, 
then  twelve  years  old,  went  to  live  as  a  lodger 
with  Mrs.  Roylance,  incidentally  to  make  mental 
notes  for  the  study  of  Mrs.  Pipchin.  These  were 
the  dark  days  of  the  blacking  warehouse.  Mrs. 
Roylance  lived  at  No.  37  Little  College  street, 
Camden  Town,  till  the  end  of  182^.  During 
a  part  of  this  year  the  boy  lived  in  a  back  attic 
in  Lant  street,  where  he  met  Bob  Sawyer  and 
the  Garland  family.  While  he  was  lodging 
here  "  something  turned  up,"  the  timely  legacy 
came  to  his  father,  who  was  released  from 
bondage.    According  to  Forster,  a  brief  so- 

[28] 


journ  at  Hampstead  for  the  entire  family 
followed  the  improvement  in  John  Dickens' 
circumstances.  The  wanderers  then  estab- 
lished themselves  —  July,  1825^  — in  a  small 
tenement,  No.  1^  Johnson  street,  Somers- 
town.  Mr.  Kitton  states  that,  according  to 
the  rate  book,  Caroline  Dickens  was  the  ten- 
ant of  these  premises  till  January,  1829. 

On  the  family's  removal  to  Johnson  street, 
after  John  Dickens'  release  in  182?,  Charles, 
then  thirteen  years  old,  was  sent  to  Wellington 
House  Academy.  According  to  Dr.  Henry 
Danson,  who  was  a  fellow  pupil  at  Wellington 
House,  Dickens,  while  attending  the  school, 
lived  in  "  a  very  small  house  in  a  street  lead- 
ing out  of  Seymour  street."  Forster  and 
other  biographers  state  that  Dickens  remained 
at  Wellington  House  Academy  for  about  two 
years ;  but  it  appears  that  they  have  rather 
overestimated  the  duration  of  his  school  days. 
It  was  March  2?,  1824,  that  the  Cower  street 
house  was  given  up.  Then  followed  the 
period  of  the  Marshalsea  for  the  father  and 
Hungerford  Stairs  for  the  boy.  This  purga- 
tory seems  to  have  continued  until  the  summer 
of  182?,  though  Dickens,  in  his  confidences  to 
Forster,  says :  "  I  have  no  idea  how  long  it 

[29] 


lasted,  —  whether  for  a  year,  or  much  more,  or 
less."  One  can  best  determine  the  duration 
of  this  time  of  misery  and  humiliation  by  the 
rate  books  and  other  records  showing  the  ten- 
ancy of  the  Dickens  family  of  various  houses 
and  lodgings.  There  is  no  record  for  the  period 
between  March  2$,  1824,  and  July,  182^.  In 
all  probability,  this  was  the  length  of  time  that 
John  Dickens  was  a  prisoner  for  debt,  and  the 
blacking  warehouse  sentence  must  have  been 
for  one  year  and  three  months. 

Dickens  certainly  did  not  enter  Welling- 
ton House  Academy  until  after  his  father  had 
been  given  freedom.  He  could  not  have  be- 
gun his  attendance  much  before  September, 
182^.  Two  years  at  the  school  would  ter- 
minate in  the  autumn  of  1827-  Yet  it  is 
certain  that  he  entered  the  offices  of  Ellis 
and  Blackmore  in  May,  1827,  and  previous 
to  that  he  had  been  employed  in  the  office 
of  Mr.  Molloy.  It  appears  probable  that  Dick- 
ens did  not  have  much  more  than  one  year's 
schooling  —  possibly  eighteen  months'  —  apart 
from  the  lessons  he  received  as  a  small  child 
from  the  Reverend  William  Giles,  the  Baptist 
clergyman  at  Chatham.  What  wonder  that 
John  Dickens,  when  asked  about  his  son's 
[30] 


education,  replied :  "  Why,  sir,  he  may  be  said 
to  have  educated  himself  I  " 

When  Charles  Dickens  left  the  Ellis  and 
Blackmore  office  (November,  1828)  he  was 
within  three  months  of  his  seventeenth  birth- 
day. At  this  time  he  began  his  work  as  a 
court  reporter.  Three  months  later  the  Dick- 
ens family  moved  to  the  Polygon,  Somers- 
town.  From  the  time  he  left  school  to  the 
date  of  the  family's  removal  to  the  Polygon, 
the  boy  lived  with  his  father  and  mother  and 
contributed  a  share  of  his  earnings  to  the 
general  exchequer.  It  is  likely  that  the  lodg- 
ing in  Cecil  street,  unfavorably  mentioned  in 
the  second  letter  in  the  present  series,  was 
Dickens'  first  separate  residence  after  his  start 
in  life  as  a  reporter.  In  1830  the  Dickens 
family  took  up  their  residence  in  Fitzroy 
street,  Fitzroy  Square,  and  Charles  returned 
to  live  at  home,  he  and  his  father  earning  at 
this  time  about  ten  pounds  a  week.  This 
was  comparative  affluence.  Dickens  began 
to  make  congenial  acquaintances;  was  taken 
up  by  respectable  middle-class  Londoners, 
and  Mrs.  Beadnell  was  sponsor  for  him  in 
a  coterie  which  to  his  unsophisticated  eyes 
appeared  to  be  Society.  It  may  be  imagined 
[31] 


with  what  care  he  concealed  the  episodes  of 
the  Marshalsea  and  the  blacking  warehouse, 
and  in  what  terror  he  lived,  dreading  a  chance 
revelation  to  his  eminently  respectable  friends. 

Although  the  house  in  Fitzroy  street  was 
occupied  by  the  Dickens  family  for  nearly 
three  years,  it  is  not  mentioned  in  any  of  the 
biographies.  Mr.  Kitton  makes  an  allusion  to 
it,  but  knew  this  early  home  of  Dickens  only 
through  having  seen  the  Kolle  letters.  These 
show  that  after  living  nearly  three  years  in 
Fitzroy  street,  the  family  moved  to  Bentinck 
street  early  in  January,  18^3. 

With  the  residence  in  Fitzroy  street  there 
began  a  new  life  for  Charles  Dickens  and  for 
all  the  members  of  his  family.  The  flamboy- 
ant geniality  of  the  father  expanded  in  the 
sunlight  of  moderate  prosperity.  He  doubtless 
still  indulged  in  the  Micawber-Iike  predilection 
for  spending  a  little  more  than  he  earned.  He 
was  perhaps  a  little  too  fond  of  the  flowing 
bowl,  and  certain  letters  recently  brought  to 
light  show  that  he  could  seek  small  loans  in 
large  language;  but  he  was  a  companionable 
man  in  his  home ;  he  even  took  part  in  the 
private  theatricals  given  by  Charles  and  his 
friends.  There  was  a  piano  in  the  parlor  and 
[32] 


there  were  occasional  trips  to  the  country. 
Dickens,  as  a  young  reporter  in  the  police 
courts,  in  Doctor's  Commons  and  in  Parlia- 
ment, saw  much  of  varied  phases  of  London 
life,  and  we  may  take  it  for  granted  that  he 
found  his  work  congenial  and  got  a  good  deal 
of  fun  out  of  it.   "  The  key  of  the  street "  —  as 
Mr.  Chesterton  says  —  was  handed  to  him  in 
the  old  days  at  Hungerford  Stairs ;  but  at  this 
time  he  began  to  use  it  to  unlock  new  mean- 
ings and  mysteries.    For  recreations  there  were 
the  playhouses,  private  theatricals,  occasional 
visits  in  society,  incipient  heart  interests,  and 
the  usual  pranks  of  precocious  young  men  of 
eighteen  with  the  freedom  of  the  city  of  London. 
One  obtains  an  idea  of  the  gaieties  in  which 
young  Dickens  indulged  from  the  sketch  enti- 
tled Making  a  Night  of  It.    In  this  the_  city 
clerk,  Thomas  Potter,  was  no  doubt  the  iden- 
tical Potter  who  was  his  fellow  clerk  at  Ellis 
and  Blackmore's  and  who  shared  his  fondness 
for  the  theatre.    The  following  letter  appears 
to  have  been  written  after  the  two  young  men 
had  been  "  Making  a  Night  of  It,"  though  it  is 
not  possible  to  say  whether  Dickens  himself 
played  the  role  of  Mr.  Robert  Smithers  in  the 
sketchof  that  title  :  — 

[33] 


FiTZROY  Street, 
Thursday  morning. 

My  dear  Kolle,  —  I  recollect  this  morning  to  my  great 
horror  that  I  owe  you  eighteen  pence  which  I  borrowed 
and  forgot  to  return  last  night.  1  therefore  hasten  to 
repair  the  omission  with  all  possible  despatch.  A  cab  driver 
whom  I  was  obliged  to  ask  for  change  last  night,  gave  me 
a  bad  five -shilling  piece,  so  that  I  was  in  luck  altogether. 
My  cold  is  about  as  bad  as  a  cold  can  be,  and  on  the 
whole  I  feel  tolerably  happy  and  comfortable  today,  the 
state  of  the  weather  being  so  admirably  adapted  to  dis- 
pel any  gloomy  ideas,  of  which  I  always  have  a  very 
plentiful  stock. 

Believe  me, 

Yours  most  truly, 

Charles  Dickens 

"  Thank  Heaven,  Pickwick  will  soon  be  out," 
exclaimed  the  invalid  after  his  prosy  pastor's 
visit.  Yet  here  we  find  the  future  creator  of 
Pickwick  confessing  to  being  in  the  "  low 
state  "  of  Mrs.  Gummidge.  This  letter  must 
have  been  written  early  in  1830,  for  the  reason 
that  Dickens  evidently  did  not  know  Kolle  as 
an  intimate  friend  at  the  time.  Otherwise 
he  would  not  have  written  in  great  haste  to 
return  a  loan  of  eighteen  pence.  The  next 
letter  belongs  to  a  somewhat  later  time  in  the 
same  year,  and  the  outing  in  prospect  doubt- 
less refers  to  a  bank  holiday  excursion. 
[34] 


My  dear  Kolle,  —  Are  you  going  out  of  town  next 
Saturday,  because  if  you  are  not,  we  propose  to  get  one 
or  two  young  men  together  for  the  purpose  of  knocking 
up  a  song  or  two,  and  I  am  specially  directed  to  beg  your 
attendance  on  the  occasion.  I  give  you  this  early  notice, 
not  because  there  is  anything  formal  or  party-like  in  the 
arrangements  for  that  day,  but  in  order  that  I  may  have 
a  better  chance  of  securing  you.  You  will  perhaps  oblige 
me  with  a  line  at  your  earliest  convenience,  giving  me 
your  arrangements  for  Saturday,  and  the  probability  of 
your  local  destination  on  that  day. 

Trusting  that  everything  goes  on  as  well  as  ever  (which 
I  have  been  more  than  once  inclined  to  doubt,  in  conse- 
quence of  not  hearing  from  or  seeing  you) ,  I  remain,  my 
dear  Kolle, 

Yours  sincerely, 
FiTZROY  STREET,  CHARLES  Dickens 

Monday  morning  [1830]. 

The  date  of  the  next  letter  can  be  fixed  ex- 
actly. It  will  be  observed  that  it  contains  an 
invitation  to  dine  on  Christmas  Day,  which  in 
the  last  paragraph  is  mentioned  as  Tuesday. 
The  letter  was  written  on  the  Thursday  pre- 
ceding, which  would  be  December  20th.  The 
Dickens  family  are  prospering.  "Our  man" 
shall  return  the  borrowed  books  to  Kolle.  The 
reference  to  the  mendacious  Miss  Evans  shows 
that  Marianne  Leigh  was  not  the  only  one  in 
the  Beadnell  social  circle  inclined  to  make 
[35] 


mischief.  Possibly  Miss  Evans  had  given  cur- 
rency to  rumors  about  Charley  Dickens'  family 
history  which  inclined  to  lower  him  in  the 
opinion  of  his  Lombard  street  friends. 

FiTZROY  Street, 
Thursday  morning. 

My  dear  Kolle,  I  am  exceedingly  sorry  that  I  was 
so  unfortunate  as  to  select  last  night  for  my  annual  visit 
to  Drury  Lane,  as  I  should  have  very  much  preferred 
having  a  chat  and  cigar  with  you.  I  hope,  however,  you 
will  give  me  an  early  opportunity  of  doing  so.  How  are 
you  engaged  on  Christmas  Day }  If  you  do  not  join  any 
family  party  of  your  own,  will  you  dine  with  us  1  It 
will,  I  need  hardly  say,  give  us  all  the  greatest  pleasure 
to  see  you.  Perhaps  you  will  let  me  know  by  a  line  per 
post.  I  have  two  books  of  yours  which  I  am  quite 
ashamed  of  having  kept  so  long.  Our  man  shall  bring 
them  this  week  without  fail. 

I  long  to  give  you  my  opinion  of  that  Miss  Evans,  and 
to  communicate  some  monstrously  strong  circumstantial 
evidence  to  prove  that  she  must  tell  the  most  confounded 

As  yours  are  "  ears  polite  "  I  shall  leave  your 

imagination  and  observation  to  supply  the  blank. 

Trusting  that  you  have  (as  you  easily  may  have)  no 
better  engagement  for  Tuesday  than  I  can  offer  you,  be- 
lieve me, 

Yours  sincerely, 

Charles  Dickens 

Of  course  1  came  home  last  night  exactly  four  min- 
utes after  you  left. 

[36] 


One  wonders  if  the  Christmas  party  at  John 
Dickens'  house  in  Fitzroy  street  had  anything 
of  the  gaiety  and  spirit  of  Bob  Cratchit's  feast. 
Surely  it  had,  with  two  hosts  like  young 
Dickens  and  his  jovial  father.  No  doubt  it 
was  a  real  old  English  middle-class  Christmas, 
with  a  punch-bowl  many  times  replenished,  a 
goose  —  "  there  never  was  such  a  goose  I "  — 
songs,  and  round  games,  and  dancing  and  the 
drinking  of  healths,  with  the  original  Micawber 
as  toastmaster. 

There  is  nothing  in  the  contents  of  the  next 
letter  which  aids  in  fixing  its  date,  excepting 
that  it  belongs  to  the  Fitzroy  street  group.  It 
was  surely  written  in  the  spring  or  summer, 
and  either  in  1830  or  I831. 

Fitzroy  Street, 
Wednesday, 

My  dear  Kolle,  —  As  we  have  had  a  little  sickness 
among  our  family,  we  intend  going  to  Highgate  for  a 
fortnight.  The  spot  we  have  chosen  is  in  a  very  pleasant 
neighborhood,  and  I  have  discovered  a  green  lane  which 
looks  as  if  nature  had  intended  it  for  a  smoking  place. 
If  you  can  make  it  convenient  to  come  down,  write  to  me 
and  fix  your  own  day.  I  am  sorry  I  cannot  offer  you  a 
bed,  because  we  are  so  pressed  for  room  that  I  myself 
hang  out  at  "  the  Red  Lion ; "  but  should  you  be  dis- 
posed to  stay  all  night,  I  have  no  doubt  you  can  be  pro- 
vided with  a  bed  at  the  same  establishment.  The  address 
[37] 


is  "  Mrs.  Goodman's,  next  door  to  the  old  Red  Lion, 
Highgate."    The  place  has  no  other  name ;  but  a  two- 
penny directed  as  above  will  no  doubt  find  us.    Remem- 
ber me  to  all  friends,  and  believe  me,  in  haste, 
Most  truly  yours, 

Charles  Dickens 

Twenty  years  after  this  letter  was  written, 
Dickens'  father  and  mother  were  buried  at 
Highgate  Cemetery,  and  there  too  his  infant 
daughter,  Dora,  was  laid  to  rest.  He  wrote  to 
Forster,  in  18^2,  "  My  Highgate  journey  yes- 
terday was  a  sad  one.  Sad  to  think  how  all 
journeys  tend  that  way.  Wild  ideas  are  upon 
me  of  going  to  Paris  —  Rouen  —  Switzerland 
—  and  writing  the  remaining  two-thirds  of  the 
next  number,  aloft  in  some  queer  inn  room." 
The  terrible  restlessness  that  turned  so  much 
of  his  work  into  self-torment  was  upon  him 
then,  for  he  had  become  a  famous  man; 
youth  and  carelessness  and  peace  of  mind 
had  gone  from  him  forever,  and  instead  of 
looking  for  a  green  lane  wherein  to  idle  for 
a  summer's  day,  he  sought  feverishly  for  some 
new  environment  which  might  stimulate  his 
imagination. 

The  next  two  letters  refer  to  a  proposal  of 
marriage  written  by  Dickens  and  sent  by  Kolle 
[38] 


to  be  delivered  to  Maria  Beadnell.  It  is  im- 
possible to  draw  any  other  inference  from  the 
contents.  Unfortunately,  there  is  no  internal 
evidence  to  fix  the  date  of  these  letters.  We 
know  that  they  were  written  before  January  S, 
183^,  as  on  that  date  the  Dickens  family  re- 
moved from  Fitzroy  street  to  the  Bentinck 
street  house.  It  was  from  the  latter  that 
Dickens  addressed  the  letters  to  Maria  Bead- 
nell which  are  contained  in  The  Bibliophile 
Society's  recent  volume.  Reverting  to  the 
poem,  The  Bill  of  Fare,  we  recall  Dickens' 
confession  that  he  had  lost  his  heart  to  Maria 
*'one  year  from  last  May,"  or  May,  I830.  It 
is  more  likely,  however,  that  The  Bill  of  Fare 
was  Dickens'  first  declaration  of  his  affections 
for  Miss  Beadnell,  as  its  daring,  if  disapproved, 
could  have  been  accounted  for  by  calling  the 
verses  mere  fun.  The  poem  was  written  to 
be  seen  by  all  the  persons  mentioned  in  it,  and 
it  is  not  probw^ble  that  Dickens  would  have 
written  as  he  did  in  these  verses  of  a  young 
girl  whom  he  had  already  asked  to  be  his  wife, 
whether  his  proposal  had  met  with  favor  or 
not.  One  is  inclined  to  think  that  the  next 
two  letters  were  written  in  1831. 

[39] 


FiTZROY  Street, 
Thursday  morning. 

My  dear  Kolle,  —  I  would  really  feel  some  delicacy  in 
asking  you  again  to  deliver  the  enclosed  as  addressed, 
were  it  not  for  two  reasons.  In  the  first  place,  you  know 
so  well  my  existing  situation  that  you  must  be  almost 
perfectly  aware  of  the  general  nature  of  the  note,  and  in 
the  second,  I  should  not  have  written  it,  for  I  should  have 
communicated  its  contents  verbally,  were  it  not  that  I 
lost  the  opportunity  of  keeping  the  old  gentleman  out  of 
the  way  as  long  as  possible  last  night.  To  these  reasons 
you  may  add  that  I  have  not  the  slightest  objection  to 
your  knowing  its  contents  from  the  first  syllable  to  the 
last. 

I  trust  under  these  circumstances  that  you  will  not  ob- 
ject to  doing  me  the  very  essential  service  of  delivering 
the  enclosed  as  soon  this  afternoon  as  you  can,  and  per- 
haps you  will  accompany  the  delivery  by  asking  Miss 
Beadnell  only  to  read  it  when  she  is  quite  alone.  Of 
course  in  this  sense  I  consider  you  as  nobody. 

By  complying  with  this  request  you  will  confer  a  very 
great  favor  on,  dear  Kolle, 

Yours  most  truly, 

Charles  Dickens 

Excuse  haste. 

From  this  letter  there  may  be  obtained  a 
fair  idea  of  the  position  of  young  Dickens  in 
the  Beadnell  family.  He  was  liked  for  his  en- 
gaging social  qualities  and  his  agreeable  per- 
sonality.   Mrs.  Beadnell,  who,  judging  from 

[40] 


the  pen  portrait  in  The  Bill  of  Fare,  was  a 
good-hearted  matron,  was  partial  to  the  youth ; 
but  certainly  he  was  not  to  be  taken  seriously 
as  an  admirer  of  one  of  her  daughters.  By 
wise  fathers  and  mothers  his  profession  is 
regarded  as  precarious ;  he  was  something  of 
a  Bohemian,  —  perhaps  a  trifle  fast.  Some  of 
these  letters  indicate  much  cigar  smoking,  and 
a  little  too  much  drinking  for  a  youth  of 
eighteen.  He  was  always  fond  of  fine  rai- 
ment,—  no  doubt  as  much  so' at  eighteen 
as  he  was  in  his  days  of  velvet  coats  and 
gaudy  waistcoats.  He  was  excellent  company, 
the  life  of  a  party,  but  not  to  be  considered 
as  a  suitor.  No  doubt  Maria  Beadnell,  some- 
what older  than  Dickens,  regarded  him  much 
in  the  manner  of  her  mother. 

There  is  something  delightfully  boyish  in 
the  reference  in  this  letter  to  the  difficulty 
of  "  keeping  the  old  gentleman  out  of  the 
way,"  —  Rosina  and  Almaviva  in  an  English 
setting.  What  manner  of  man  was  the  old 
gentleman  who  would  not  be  kept  out  of  the 
way?  The  portrait  of  Mr.  Beadnell  in  The 
Bill  of  Fare  verses  is  negative,  but  contrasts 
so  vividly  with  the  complimentary  description 
of  Mrs.  Beadnell  that  one  infers  Dickens'  dis- 

[41] 


like  of  him.  No  doubt  we  have  a  sketch  of 
him  in  Mr.  Casby ;  and  one  suspects  that  he, 
as  well  as  Mr.  S.  C.  Hall,  contributed  some  of 
the  qualities  of  Mr.  Pecksniflf,  —  perhaps  the 
manner  of  that  great  and  good  man  toward 
his  fair  daughters.  Mr.  Pecksniflf,  too,  was  a 
sort  of  architect,  —  the  profession  of  which 
Mr.  Beadnell  had  been  an  ornament.  The 
little  that  we  know  of  him  indicates  that  he 
was  a  pompous  and  ponderous  person,  —  one 
of  those  middle-class  Englishmen  on  whom 
the  aflfairs  of  the  British  Empire  weigh  heavily. 
"  His  opinions,"  wrote  Dickens,  *'  were  always 
sound  and  sincere,"  with  the  "sound"  in  italics. 
The  joke  reminds  one  of  Jerrold's  answer  to 
the  bore's  question :  "  Are  not  my  opinions 
sound?"    "They  are,  and  nothing  else." 

In  the  Dickens-Beadnell  volume  is  printed  a 
letter  from  the  novelist  to  George  Beadnell, 
written  in  18^2.  The  original  of  this  letter, 
by  the  way,  is  in  the  possession  of  the  present 
writer.  Unfortunately  George  Beadnell's  in- 
vitation, to  which  this  is  a  reply,  was  burnt 
in  the  holocaust  of  autographs  at  Gad's  Hill 
in  i860.  Very  likely  it  would  tell  us  some- 
thing of  Mr.  Beadnell's  characteristics. 

The  foregoing  letter  seems  to  prove  that 

[42] 


while  Kolle  was  the  accepted  suitor  of  Anne 
Beadnell,  the  engagement  being  sanctioned  by 
her  parents,  Dickens'  courtship  of  Maria  was 
surreptitious.  It  also  shows  that  Kolle  was 
Dickens'  confidant  in  his  love  affair.  Sent  on 
Thursday,  the  love-letter  or  offer  of  marriage 
was  promptly  answered,  as  Dickens  received 
Miss  Beadnell's  reply  the  next  morning.  In 
it  he  was  asked  to  send  another  letter  by 
Kolle. 

FiTZROY  Street, 
Friday  morning. 

My  dear  Kolle,  —  As  I  was  requested  in  a  note  I  re- 
ceived this  morning  to  forward  my  answer  by  the  same 
means  as  my  first  note,  I  am  emboldened  to  ask  you  if 
you  will  be  so  kind  as  to  deliver  the  enclosed  for  me 
when  you  practise  your  customary  duet  this  afternoon. 
I  hope  you  will  not  make  it  long  before  in  mere  charity 
you  look  in  upon  me. 

Believe  me,  my  dear  Kolle, 

Yours  sincerely, 

Charles  Dickens 

If,  as  it  is  surmised,  the  earlier  letter  trans- 
mitted by  Kolle  was  an  offer  of  marriage,  it 
is  evident  that  Maria  gave  Dickens  no  defi- 
nite reply.  She  could  not  have  said  "  yes," 
or  "no."  She  kept  her  swain  in  suspense. 
Being  a  coquettish  young  person,  she  enjoyed 
[43] 


the  homage  of  love-letters,  particularly  as  they 
were  cleverly  written  by  an  ardent  and  attrac- 
tive youth.  She  temporized,  and  doubtless 
relished  the  cat-and-mouse  game.  Dickens 
was  serious  enough  for  two.  "  I  hope,"  he 
writes  to  Kolle,  '*  you  will  not  make  it  long 
before  in  mere  charity  you  look  in  upon 
me. 

From  any  evidence  known  to  be  in  exist- 
ence, it  is  impossible  to  determine  the  relations 
of  Charles  Dickens  and  Maria  Beadnell  from 
the  time  of  this  correspondence  until  the  mis- 
understanding and  final  separation  in  the  spring 
of  1 83  3 .  It  is  most  likely  that  there  was  a  clan- 
destine engagement  which  Dickens  regarded  as 
a  very  serious  matter,  but  which  Miss  Beadnell 
considered  a  source  of  amusement.  It  is  safe 
to  assume  that  there  was  no  engagement  with 
parental  consent.  Neither  George  Beadnell 
nor  his  wife  would  be  likely  to  approve  of  the 
betrothal  of  their  daughter  to  a  youth  under 
twenty,  somewhat  volatile  and  unstable,  and 
with  no  substantial  worldly  prospects.  Maria 
possessed  beauty  and  charm,  and,  however 
bright  and  clever  Dickens  might  be  consid- 
ered, the  Beadnells  had  higher  expectations 
for  her.    Forster  intimates  that  there  was  a 

[44] 


secret  engagement  when  he  quotes  the  fol- 
lowing as  an  allusion  to  the  "  Dora  of  1829." 

**The  lovers  sit  looking  at  one  another  so 
superlatively  happy,  that  I  mind  me  when  I, 
turned  of  eighteen,  went  with  my  Angelica  to 
a  city  church  on  account  of  a  shower  (by  this 
special  coincidence  that  it  was  in  Huggin-lane), 
and  when  I  said  to  my  Angelica,  'Let  the 
blessed  event,  Angelica,  occur  at  no  altar  but 
this  1 '  and  when  my  Angelica  consented  that  it 
should  occur  at  no  other,  —  which  it  certainly 
never  did,  for  it  never  occurred  anywhere. 
And  0,  Angelica,  what  has  become  of  you, 
the  present  Sunday  morning  when  I  can't  at- 
tend to  the  sermon,  and,  more  difficult  ques- 
tion than  that,  what  has  become  of  me  as  I 
was  when  I  sat  by  your  side  ? " 

That  there  was  an  engagement  of  some  kind 
seems  certain.  Dickens  refers  to  the  affair  as 
having  "  excluded  every  other  idea  from  my 
mind  for  four  years  at  a  time  of  life  when  four 
years  are  equal  to  four  times  four."  It  is  not 
to  be  supposed  that  a  love  affair  would  **  per- 
vade every  chink  and  crevice  of  his  mind  for 
three  or  four  years,"  unless  there  were  an  en- 
gagement at  some  time  during  that  period. 
That  the  relations  were  equivalent  to  those 

[45] 


of  affianced  lovers  is  shown  by  the  Dickens- 
Beadnell  correspondence.  If  there  were  no 
definite  relations  to  break  off,  why  did  it  re- 
quire the  exchange  of  so  many  letters  ?  That 
Maria  Beadnell  ever  had  any  serious  idea  of 
marrying  Dickens  is  not  probable ;  but  it  is 
fairly  certain  that  he  considered  her  his  be- 
trothed, that  he  expected  to  marry  her,  and 
that  she  deluded  him  into  that  hope.  Proba- 
bly he  was  the  most  attractive  young  man  in 
a  coterie  which  is  not  likely  to  have  been 
notably  brilliant. 

The  preceding  letters  are  the  only  ones 
known  positively  to  have  been  written  be- 
fore January,  1833.  In  that  month  the  Dick- 
ens family  removed  from  the  house  in  Fitzroy 
street  to  one  in  Bentinck  street,  Manchester 
Square.  Forster  names  183 1  as  the  date  of 
residence  in  the  latter,  but  he  seems  to  have 
had  no  knowledge  of  the  Fitzroy  street  home, 
where  the  family  lived  for  at  least  two  years. 
The  next  letter  following  is  the  only  one  bear- 
ing a  date  in  the  writer's  hand.  It  was  written 
January  S,  1833,  and  proves  exactly  the  time 
of  the  removal  to  Bentinck  street.  This  is  of 
some  interest,  as  it  was  while  living  in  the 
Bentinck  street  house  that  Dickens  made  his 

[46] 


beginning  in  literature.  It  was  in  a  room  in  this 
house  that  he  wrote  his  first  sketch,  the  manu- 
script of  which  he  mailed  with  an  agitation 
which  he  has  vividly  described.  The  house  was 
No.  18.  About  fifteen  years  ago  it  was  torn 
down  to  make  room  for  a  row  of  modern  man- 
sions ;  and  Mr.  Kitton  at  the  time  of  his  investi- 
gations found  that  the  tenant  of  No.  19  "  oddly 
enough  bore  the  novelisf  s  patronymic." 

Dear  Kolle,  —  Will  you  excuse  my  postponing  the 
pleasure  of  seeing  yourself  and  brother  until  Sunday 
week  ?  my  reason  is  this : 

As  we  are  having  coals  in  at  the  new  place,  cleaning, 
&c.,  we  cannot  very  well  remove  until  Tuesday  or  W^ed- 
nesday  next.  The  piano  will  most  likely  go  to  Bentinck 
Street  today,  and  as  I  have  already  said,  we  cannot  ac- 
company it,  so  that  the  piano  will  be  in  one  place  and  we 
in  another. 

In  addition  to  this  we  shall  be  all  in  bustle  and  I  fear 
should  impress  your  brother  with  a  very  uncomfortable 
idea  of  our  domestic  arrangements.  Will  you  therefore 
let  me  hope  to  see  you  on  Sunday  week,  when  perhaps 
we  shall  be  enabled  to  get  a  friend  of  yours  to  meet  you. 

I  was  not  certain  last  night  that  we  should  postpone 
our  removal ;  had  I  been  so  I  would  have  spared  you  the 
infliction  of  deciphering  this  elegant  epistle. 
Believe  me,  my  dear  Kolle, 

Yours  most  truly, 

Charles  Dickens 

Saturday,  Jan.  5,  1833. 

[47] 


It  will  be  seen  that  the  Marshalsea  was  now 
so  far  in  the  background  that  a  piano  was  a 
household  necessity  with  the  Dickens  family, 
and  that,  too,  when  pianos  were  less  common 
than  at  present.  Music  probably  played  an 
important  part  in  the  social  life  of  Dickens 
and  his  young  friends.  His  sister  Fanny  was 
a  prize  pupil  at  the  Royal  Academy,  and,  as 
one  of  the  preceding  letters  shows,  he  was 
fond  of  getting  together  a  party  of  young  men 
for  the  purpose  of  "  knocking  up  a  song  or 
two."  The  next  letter  makes  good  the  post- 
poned invitation,  and  the  house-warming  party 
in  the  new  house  in  Bentinck  street  was  given 
January  11.  — 

Dear  Kolle,  —  I  enclose  an  invitation  to  yourself  and 
both  your  brothers  for  the  11th.  I  do  not  like  after  par- 
taking so  liberally  of  your  hospitality  to  leave  anyone 
out. 

1  was  sorry  to  hear  you  were  "  diskivered  "  the  other 
night,  though  1  do  not  know  that  the  thing  is  a  bit  the 
worse  for  it  in  the  end. 

Let  me  see  you  one  evening  this  week  because  next 
the  House  begins.     I  shall  be  at  home. 
Believe  me,  my  dear  Kolle, 

Most  sincerely, 

Charles  Dickens 

Bentinck  Street. 

[48] 


Dickens'  regret  at  Kolle's  being  **diskiv- 
ered  "  may  refer  to  the  latter's  having  been 
caught  in  the  act  of  carrying  a  note  to  Maria. 
Kolle's  courtship  of  Anne  Beadnell  continued 
to  prosper,  but  Dickens  seems  to  have  made 
no  definite  progress.  Dora  was  either  worn 
out  by  the  opposition  of  her  parents,  or  she 
found  that  playing  the  coquette  with  one 
faithful  and  enamoured  young  man  became 
monotonous.  In  February  or  March,  18^3, 
her  coldness  to  Dickens  —  "  heartless  indiflfer- 
ence,"  he  calls  it  —  became  more  than  he 
could  endure,  and  he  wrote  the  first  of  the 
printed  letters  to  Miss  Beadnell.  Shortly  af- 
terward, Kolle's  engagement  to  Anne  was 
formally  announced.  The  despondency  of 
Dickens  at  this  time  and  his  wretchedness  be- 
cause of  the  ill-treatment  he  received  are 
shown  by  his  letters  to  Miss  Beadnell  and  his 
confidences  to  Forster  years  afterward.  But 
he  made  a  good  fight  and  ambition  began  to 
stir  within  him.  If  he  could  not  win  Dora, 
he  would  prove  to  her  that  she  had  lost  a 
lover  of  whom  she  might  have  been  proud. 
It  is  likely  that  at  this  time  he  thought  seri- 
ously of  becoming  an  actor.  Dickens  told 
Forster  that  when  he  was  *'  about  twenty,"  he 

[49] 


applied  to  Hartley,  stage  manager  at  Covent 
Garden,  for  an  engagement. 

The  next  letter  was  written  in  April,  1833. 
It  contrasts  Kolle's  good  fortune  with  his  own 
unhappy  situation,  and  one  may  feel  the  self- 
pity  of  youth  suffering  the  pangs  of  despised 
love.  At  the  same  time  there  is  an  intimated 
determination  to  throw  oif  depression  by  tak- 
ing up  with  other  interests.  Dora  may  frown, 
but  David  will  try  to  forget  her  unkindness 
by  throwing  himself  heart  and  soul  into  a 
congenial  task. — 

Bentinck  Street, 
Monday  morning  [April,  1833]. 

My  dear  Kolle,  —  I  received  your  note  the  other  day 
and  of  course  much  regretted  the  absence  of  any  member 
of  my  company  on  the  occasion  of  a  grand  rehearsal. 
You  ask  me  whether  I  do  not  congratulate  you.  I  do 
most  sincerely.  If  anyone  can  be  supposed  to  take  a 
lively  and  real  interest  in  such  a  case  it  is  an  old  and 
mutual  friend  of  both  parties.  Though  perhaps  1  cannot 
lay  claim  to  an  old  friend  I  hope  I  may  be  that  of  a  real 
one,  and  although  unfortunately  and  unhappily  for  my- 
self, I  have  no  fellow-feeling  with  you,  no  cause  to  sym- 
pathize with  your  past  causes  of  annoyance,  or  your 
present  prospects  of  happiness,  I  am  not  the  less  disposed 
to  offer  my  heartfelt  congratulations  to  you  because  you 
are,  or  at  all  events  will  be,  what  I  never  can,  happy  and 
contented,  taking  present  grievances  as  happiness,  com- 
[50] 


pared  with  former  difficulties  and  looking  cheerfully  and 
steadily  forward  to  a  bright  prospective  of  many  happy 
years. 

Now  turning  from  feeling  and  making  oneself  miser- 
able, and  so  on,  may  I  ask  you  to  spare  one  evening  this 
week  for  the  purpose  of  doing  your  two  pair  of  side 
scenes.  I  would  not  ask  you,  but  I  really  have  no  other 
resource.  The  time  is  fast  approaching  and  I  am  rather 
nervous.  Will  you  write  and  tell  me  when  you  will 
come  and  when  I  may  send  for  your  scene.  Thursday 
is  a  rehearsal  of  Clari  with  the  band,  and  Friday  week 
a  dress  rehearsal. 

You  shall  have  your  bills  when  I  see  you.  An  im- 
mense audience  are  invited,  including  many  judges. 
Write  me  an  answer  to  these  queries  as  soon  as  pos- 
sible, pray. 

The  family  are  busy.    The  corps  dramatic  are  all 
anxiety.     The  scenery  is  all  completing  rapidly,   the 
machinery  is  finished,  the  curtain  hemmed,  the  orches- 
tra complete  and  the  manager  grimy. 
Believe  me,  my  dear  KoUe, 

Truly  yours, 

Charles  Dickens 

It  is  rather  startling  to  read  the  confession 
of  Charles  Dickens  at  the  age  of  twenty-one 
that  he  is  not  and  never  can  be  happy  and 
contented;  but  a  vein  of  melancholy  appears 
in  several  of  these  letters  to  Kolle  as  well  as  in 
those  to  Maria  Beadnell.  His  despondent  in- 
trospection at  the  time  was  due  partly  to  the 
[51] 


unhappy  outcome  of  his  love  aflfair;  but  it 
was  also  an  essential  quality  in  Dickens'  tem- 
perament. The  greatest  humorist  of  his  time 
was  also  the  most  sentimental  of  men,  and 
most  intensely  so  about  himself.  Humor  and 
a  tendency  to  be  **  sad  as  night  only  for  wan- 
toness  "  arise  from  the  same  causes,  sensibility 
and  imagination.  Moliere  was  a  melancholy 
man.  Liston,  the  drollest  of  comedians,  in  a 
fit  of  melancholia,  visited  a  doctor  who,  not 
recognizing  him,  advised  him  to  "go  to  see 
Liston  act."  Dickens,  with  all  his  joviality 
and  the  genuine  gaiety  of  most  of  his  writ- 
ings, was  a  man  of  many  heart-aches.  It  is 
part  of  the  law  of  compensation  that  one  who 
most  intensely  enjoys  the  good  in  life  must 
suffer  most  keenly  from  its  ills. 

This  and  the  next  two  letters  refer  to  the 
performance  of  Clari,  or  the  Maid  of  Milan, 
by  an  amateur  company  organized  and  di- 
rected by  Dickens.  This  representation  took 
place  on  Saturday  evening,  April  27,  1833, 
and  these  letters  were  written  during  the  prog- 
ress of  the  rehearsals.  Kolle  appears  to  have 
been  an  important  factor  in  the  amateur  the- 
atricals, as  he  was  cast  for  a  prominent  part 
in  Clari  and  was  also  called  upon  to  paint  the 

[52] 


scenery.  But  Kolle  had  not  Dickens'  incen- 
tive to  work ;  he  had  no  sorrows  to  disperse 
and  no  broken  heart  to  forget.  As  a  newly 
engaged  young  man,  he  had  no  evenings  to 
devote  to  the  painting  of  side  scenes.  "To 
sport  with  Amaryllis  in  the  shade  "  was  his  spe- 
cialty for  the  moment,  and  he  much  preferred 
rehearsing  his  love  scenes  with  the  gentle 
Anne  to  practising  the  mouthings  of  "  the 
Nobleman"  in  John  Howard  Payne's  opera. 
Who  can  blame  him  for  absenting  himself 
from  rehearsals  to  an  extent  that  brought 
upon  him  the  rebuke  of  the  young  director 
and  stage  manager? 

BEPfTiNCK  Street, 
Tuesday  morning  [April,  1833]. 

My  dear  Kolle,  —  I  will  not  say  that  I  have  been  sur- 
prised at  our  not  hearing  from  or  seeing  you,  either  on 
the  day  you  mentioned  in  your  note  or  any  other  time 
since  its  receipt,  because  of  course  we  know  from  practi- 
cal experience  in  other  cases  that  a  little  flow  of  pros- 
perity is  an  excellent  cooler  of  former  friendships,  and 
that  when  other  and  more  pleasant  engagements  can  be 
formed,  visits,  if  not  visits  of  convenience,  become  exces- 
sively irksome.  This  is  everybody's  way,  and  of  course, 
therefore,  I  attach  no  blame  to  you  that  it  is  yours  also. 
1  do  not  say  this  with  any  ill-natured  feeling,  or  in  any 
unkind  spirit,  but  I  know  that  something  like  this  is  felt 
[53] 


by  others  here,  and  I  am  really  sorry  for  it,  though  as  I 
said  before  by  no  means  surprised  that  it  should  be  so. 

Now,  as  Saturday  is  fast  approaching  I  should  really 
be  much  obliged  to  you  if  you  will  (if  you  can  find  the 
time)  write  me  a  word  in  answer  to  these  two  questions. 
In  the  first  place,  do  you  play  the  Nobleman  ?  I  have 
the  dress  and  if  you  are  disinclined  to  play  the  character 
I  must  intrust  it  to  other  hands.  In  the  second  place, 
when  may  I  send  for  your  scene,  as  it  requires  fitting  up, 
lighting,  &c.  ? 

Believe  me  (in  great  haste), 

Very  truly  yours, 

Charles  Dickens 

Thus  admonished,  Kolle  made  haste  to  sup- 
ply his  scenery  and  to  perfect  himself  in  the 
part  of  the  Nobleman.  Evidently  the  ama- 
teurs, under  young  Dickens'  management, 
went  into  their  theatricals  quite  thoroughly. 
The  letters  show  how  completely  absorbed 
Dickens  was  in  these  aflfairs.  He  was  the 
organizer  and  stage  director ;  he  played  a  lead- 
ing character  in  each  of  the  three  pieces  per- 
formed ;  he  wrote  the  "Introductory  Prologue," 
and  in  all  probability  was  the  author  of  the 
afterpiece,  Amateurs  and  Actors,  besides  su- 
perintending all  the  details.  In  later  years  he 
frequently  demonstrated  his  great  talent  for 
this  sort  of  work  as  well  as  for  theatrical  im- 
[54] 


personation,  but  it  is  probable  that  he  never 
took  a  more  anxious  interest  in  a  performance 
than  in  this  one,  when  one  of  his  chief  motives 
was  to  impress  Maria  Beadnell.  The  three 
characters  for  which  he  cast  himself  were  de- 
signed to  show  his  versatility  as  an  actor,  hi 
Clari  he  played  a  "  heavy  "  part,  the  heroine's 
father;  in  The  Married  Bachelor,  he  acted  a 
polished  man  of  the  world  —  high  comedy; 
and  in  Amateurs  and  Actors,  a  low  comedy 
role. 

The  allusion  to  "  our  friend  the  clerk  "  in  the 
following  note  may  refer  to  arrangements  for 
Kolle's  marriage  which  was  to  occur  in  the 
following  month. 

[April,  1833]. 

Dear  Kolle,  —  Will  you  be  kind  enough  to  give 
Henry  Bramwell  the  enclosed  14/  —  for  cigars,  at  the 
same  time  saying  I  am  much  obliged  to  him.  Ask 
him  to  be  punctual  on  Monday  as  1  expect  an  excel- 
lent  rehearsal,  and  "  Look  to  yourself."  The  scenery  is 
progressing  at  a  very  rapid  rate,  the  machinery  is  excel- 
lent, the  decorations  are  very  good  and  ditto  expensive  ; 
and  in  short  the  whole  affair  is  in  excellent  train.  I  am 
busy  and  therefore  will  not  give  you  the  trouble  of  de- 
ciphering any  more  of  my  ilegant  writing. 
Believe  me,  dear  Kolle, 

Sincerely  yours,  C.  D. 

[55] 


Have  you  seen  our  friend  the  clerk  yet  ?  Or  have 
you  adopted  the  other  course  ?  No  good  results  yet,  I 
presume. 

The  Henry  Bramwell,  to  whom  the  money 
for  cigars  was  sent,  was  a  young  law  student, 
who  afterward  became  a  Judge  and  a  Peer  of 
the  Realm.  He  was  a  member  of  the  cast  of 
Clari,  assuming  the  character  of  the  Duke 
Vivaldi.  The  performance  was  given  and  it 
may  be  assumed  that  Dickens  covered  himself 
with  amateur  glory.  Maria  Beadnell  was  in 
the  audience ;  but  the  only  effect  that  the  af- 
fair had  upon  her  was  to  create  additional 
coldness  on  account  of  Dickens'  attentions  to 
Marianne  Leigh.  He  declares  that,  on  that 
evening,  he  "could  not  get  rid  of  her."  As 
Miss  Leigh  and  Maria  were  intimate  friends, 
this  statement  of  Dickens  means  one  of  two 
things:  either  Miss  Leigh  was  in  love  with 
him,  as  Professor  Baker  thinks,  or  her  persist- 
ence in  putting  herself  in  his  way  was  prear- 
ranged by  the  two  girls  in  order  that  Maria 
might  have  a  definite  cause  for  ridding  herself 
of  him.  There  is  at  least  one  good  reason  for 
believing,  with  Professor  Baker,  that  Marianne 
Leigh  was  in  love  with  Dickens.  It  is  that 
she,  apparently,  was  a  much  cleverer  girl  than 

[56] 


Maria.  A  clever  girl  would  be  quick  to  ap- 
preciate the  unusual  qualities  of  a  young  man 
like  Dickens  and  his  superiority  to  other 
youths,  while  an  unintelligent  woman  (such  as 
Maria  Beadnell  appears  in  both  the  pen  por- 
traits afterward  made  of  her  by  Dickens) 
would  have  been  merely  bored  by  him.  In 
Tbe^illof  Fare,  Miss  Leigh  is  described  as  "a 
fine  roasting  Jack  ;  a  patent  one,  too  —  never 
wants  winding  up."  Does  not  this  indicate 
that  Dickens'  dislike  for  the  young  woman 
antedated  by  two  years  her  mischief-making  in 
his  love  affair  ?  And  may  she  not  have  loved 
him  the  more  because  she  felt  that  her  case 
was  hopeless  on  account  of  his  preference  for 
her  girl  friend  ? 

Subsequent  to  the  dramatic  performance, 
April  27th,  1833,  Dickens  met  Miss  Beadnell, 
and  it  is  evident  that  she  reproached  him  for 
his  interest  in  Marianne  Leigh.  She  after- 
ward repeated  her  charges  in  a  letter  and 
Dickens  wrote  denying  Miss  Leigh's  interfer- 
ence. Kolle  at  this  time  was  busily  preparing 
for  his  wedding  which  had  been  announced 
for  May  21st.  The  second  letter  to  Maria,  on 
page  48  of  the  Dickens-Beadnell  correspond- 
ence, written  on  a  Tuesday  afternoon,  was 
[57] 


probably  sent  May  14th.  Dickens  and  Kolle 
had  discussed  the  increasing  coldness  of  Maria 
Beadnell  and  the  mischievous  part  played  by 
Miss  Leigh.  Again  Kolle  played  the  confidant 
and  go-between.  The  letter  to  Maria  asking 
her  consent  to  Dickens  writing  to  Miss  Leigh 
was  sent  to  Kolle  with  the  following  note  :  — 

My  dear  Kolle,  —  On  reflection  it  appeared  to  me  that 
as  Miss  Beadnell  is  a  party  concerned  and  as  Marianne 
Leigh's  malice  in  the  event  of  my  writing  might  be 
directed  against  her,  I  have  thought  it  best  to  ask  her 
consent  to  my  writing  at  all,  which  I  have  done  in  the  en- 
closed note.  You  know  how  I  feel  upon  the  subject,  and 
how  anxious  I  naturally  am,  and  I  am  sure,  therefore,  you 
will  do  all  you  can  for  me  when  I  say  that  I  want  it  de- 
livered immediately.  I  have  lost  too  much  time  already. 
Believe  me,  my  dear  Kolle, 

Faithfully  yours,  C.  D. 

Tuesday  evening  [May  14,  1833]. 

Although  Dickens  was  properly  punctilious 
in  asking  Miss  Beadnell's  permission  to  write 
his  resentful  letter  to  Marianne  Leigh,  it  is 
quite  certain  that  he  was  glad  enough  to  have 
this  excuse  to  write  to  his  chilly  and  silly 
Maria.  Write  he  did,  and  her  reply  —  judging 
from  his  next  letter  —  reiterated  charges  of 
conspiracy  against  her  by  Dickens  and  her 
imaginary  rival.  However,  her  feminine  curi- 
[58] 


osity  was  strongf  enough  to  cause  her  to  admit 
that  she  would  like  to  see  the  letter  he  in- 
tended writing  to  Marianne.  On  the  follow- 
ing evening,  therefore,  Dickens  called  at  Kolle's 
house  with  a  letter  for  Miss  Beadnell  enclosing 
the  scornful  epistle  to  Miss  Leigh.  Of  the 
latter  the  artless  Maria  was  careful  to  keep  a 
copy  which  she  made,  and  which  appears  in 
the  Dickens-Beadnell  volume-  The  letter  was 
sent  to  Miss  Leigh  and,  as  it  must  have  effect- 
ually cured  her  of  any  aflFection  she  may  have 
had  for  Dickens,  it  is  likely  that  the  two  girls 
lost  no  time  in  meeting  for  a  chat  and  a  good 
laugh  over  the  aflfair  which  Dickens  regarded 
as  a  tragedy  that  wrecked  his  life. 

Kolle  was  the  bearer  of  Dickens'  last  appeal 
to  Maria  Beadnell.  This  letter  was  written  May 
19,  18^3,  the  Sunday  immediately  preceding 
Kolle's  marriage.  The  following  note  to  Kolle 
was,  of  course,  written  on  the  same  day,  and 
the  letter  to  Maria  sent  with  it  to  be  delivered 
to  her  when  Kolle  made  his  Sunday  evening 
call  upon  his  betrothed. 

My  dear  Kolle,  —  I  enclose  a  very  conciliatory  note. 
Sans  pride,  Sans  Reserve,  Sans  anything  but  an  evident 
wish  to  be  reconciled,  which  1  shall  be  most  obliged  by 
your  delivering. 

[59] 


Independently  of  the  numerous  advantages  of  your 
marriage  you  will  have  this  great  consolation,  that  you 
will  be  for  once  and  for  aye  relieved  from  these  most 
troublesome  commissions.  I  leave  the  note  myself,  hop- 
ing  that  it  is  possible,  though  not  probable,  that  it  may 
catch  you  so  as  to  be  delivered  today. 

By  the  by,  if  I  had  many  friends  in  the  habit  of  mar- 
rying, which  friends  had  brothers  who  possessed  an  ex- 
tensive assortment  of  choice  hock,  I  should  be  dead  in  no 
time. 

Yesterday  I  felt  like  a  maniac,  today  my  interior  re- 
sembles a  lime  basket. 

Truly  yours,  C.  D. 

Sunday  [May  19,  1833]. 

The  last  two  paragraphs  refer  to  a  bachelors' 
supper  given  on  the  evening  of  May  17th. 
Dickens  apparently  drank  more  than  was  good 
for  him.  He  was  always  fond  of  the  liquid 
good  things  in  life,  and  on  this  occasion,  apart 
from  the  ordinary  temptations  of  a  festive 
gathering  of  young  men,  there  doubtless  was 
in  his  mind  a  recklessness  born  of  despond- 
ency. He  compared  Kolle's  "  most  blest  con- 
dition" with  the  unhappy  termination  of  his 
own  love  affair,  and  he  drank  to  forget  — 
enough  to  make  him  feel  "like  a  maniac"  the 
next  day  and  very  uncomfortable  on  the  sec- 
ond day  after. 

In  his  note  to  Kolle,  Dickens  accurately  de- 

[60] 


scribes  his  letter  to  Miss  Beadnell.  It  is  one 
that  would  touch  the  heart  of  any  girl  worth 
the  winning;  but  Maria  Beadnell's  little  mind 
was  made  up.  If  she  had  ever  cared  for 
Dickens,  she  had  outgrown  all  fondness  for 
him.  As  he  said  in  one  of  his  later  letters, 
when  Dora  became  Flora,  "  you  answered  me 
coldly  and  reproachfully,  and  so  I  went  my 
way."  This  cold  and  reproachful  answer  she 
gave  to  Kolle  to  deliver  to  Dickens,  and  the 
final  dismissal  was  received  by  the  unhappy 
lover  on  the  next  day.  Even  now  he  did  not 
"  go  his  way  "  without  another  appeal  or  a 
last  word  of  some  sort.  For  on  the  follow- 
ing day  he  sent  another  letter  for  Kolle  to 
give  to  Maria. — 

Tuesday  [May  2tst,  1833]. 

My  dear  Kolle,  —  "Least  said  soonest  mended."  I 
am  very  very  much  obliged  to  you  for  performing  my 
commission  in  the  midst  of  your  multifarious  concerns 
so  kindly  and  punctually.  May  I  trouble  you  with  an- 
other  ?  by  way,  of  course,  of  evincing  my  gratitude. 

I  shall  be  at  my  post  in  Addle  street  at  10 :  GO  to- 
morrow. 

Faithfully  yours, 

Charles  Dickens 

To  Henry  Kolle,  Esq., 
14  Addle  Street,  Aldermanbury. 

[61] 


This  last  letter  was  not  kept  with  her  other 
trophies  by  Miss  Beadnell.  It  was  so  unusual 
for  her  to  overlook  anything  gratifying  to  her 
girlish  vanity,  that  one  is  tempted  to  believe 
that  the  letter  never  reached  her.  Kolle  was 
to  be  married  the  next  day.  It  is  quite  possi- 
ble that  he  forgot  to  deliver  his  friend's  note ; 
or  he  may  have  suppressed  it,  believing,  more 
consistently  than  Dickens,  "  least  said  soonest 
mended." 

The  last  paragraph  in  the  note  to  Kolle 
refers  to  his  wedding,  which  occurred  the 
following  day.  Dickens  was  Kolle's  best 
man,  and  the  being  "  at  his  post  in  Addle 
street"  refers  to  his  calling  for  the  bride- 
groom at  the  latter's  house.  No.  14  Addle 
street. 

Thus  ended  Dickens'  first  and,  as  far  as 
known,  his  only  real  love  affair.  His  subse- 
quent courtship  and  marriage  seem  to  have 
been  quite  free  from  the  element  of  poetic 
sentiment.  He  himself  wrote  to  Maria  in 
18^^:  "Whatever  of  fancy,  romance,  energy, 
passion,  aspiration  and  determination  belong 
to  me,  I  never  have  separated  and  never  shall 
separate  from  the  hard-hearted  little  woman  — 
you."    That  he  had  at  the  time  of  his  marriage 

[62] 


an  honest  and  manly  affection  for  the  lady 
whom  he  made  his  wife  is  beyond  question. 
Mr.  Chesterton  thinks  that  Dickens  fell  in 
love  with  all  three  of  the  Hogarth  sisters ;  but 
there  is  in  the  known  letters  to  Miss  Catherine 
Hogarth  nothing  of  the  passionate  adoration 
that  was  lavished  upon  his  first  love.  Mary 
Hogarth  was  his  ideal  of  all  that  is  adorable  in 
girlhood.  His  devotion  to  her  and  his  grief 
for  her  early  death  were  among  the  most  en- 
during passions  of  his  life.  His  relations  with 
Georgina  Hogarth  were  those  of  an  ennobling 
friendship.  Instead  of  having  fallen  in  love 
with  all  three  of  the  sisters,  as  Mr.  Chesterton 
suggests,  it  is  more  likely  that  Dickens  fell  in 
love  with  none  of  them. 

The  following  note  to  Miss  Catherine  Ho- 
garth, written  at  some  time  in  183^,  is  in  the 
collection  of  the  present  writer  and  is  now 
first  printed.  While  its  tone  is  alTectionate,  it 
has  none  of  the  fervor  of  the  Beadnell  letters 
and,  in  fact,  shows  a  greater  enthusiasm  for 
books  and  his  work  than  for  his  fiancee.  A 
man  whose  letters  to  friends  are  always  so 
affectionate  could  hardly  have  written  more 
conventionally  to  the  young  woman  he  was 
on  the  point  of  marrying. — 
[63] 


FuRNivAL's  Inn, 
Thursday  Night. 

My  dearest  Katie  —  It  is  nearly  eight,  and  I  have  not 
yet  even  begun  the  Sketch  ;  neither  have  I  thought  of  a 
subject.  Excuse  the  brevity  of  this  note  on  that  account 
and  believe  that  it  is  only  occasioned  by  my  wish  to  see 
you  as  early  as  possible  tomorrow. 

I  send  you  by  George  (who  in  Fred's  absence  on  busi- 
ness, is  kind  enough  to  be  the  bearer  of  this)  the  volume 
which  contains  the  Life  of  Savage.  I  have  turned  down 
the  leaf.  Now  do  read  it  attentively ;  if  you  do,  I  know 
from  your  excellent  understanding  you  will  be  delighted. 
If  you  slur  it,  you  will  think  it  dry.  I  have  written  to 
Macrone  for  Rookwood ;  and  shall  have  it  tomorrow,  I 
doubt  not. 

Give  my  best  love  to  your  mamma  and  Mary.  Write 
me  word  how  all  is  going  on. 

Ever  yours,  my  dearest  love, 

Charles  Dickens 

With  this  is  a  wrapper  addressed  "  Miss 
Hogarth.  Favored  by  George  Hogarth,  Esq." 
The  letter  was  given  by  Mrs.  Perugini  (Kate 
Dickens)  to  George  Augustus  Sala  who  has 
endorsed  it,  "  Precious  Dickens  letter  to  his 
wife  before  their  marriage." 

Professor  Baker  finds  it  difficult  to  under- 
stand Maria  Beadnell's  treatment  of  Dickens. 
It  may  be  accounted  for  by  the  fact  that  she 
did  not  have  intelligence  enough  to  appreciate 

[64] 


him  nor  heart  enough  to  respond  to  a  genuine 
passion.  Miss  Beadnell  was  Flora  Pinching  at 
forty-five  or  so.  At  twenty  she  was  the  same 
Flora,  excepting  that  she  had  the  charm  of 
Dora's  youthful  prettiness.  What  Dickens  saw 
in  her  to  fall  desperately  in  love  with  would 
be  a  greater  mystery,  were  it  not  for  the  fact 
that  the  cleverest  men  have  never  been  proof 
against  the  fascinations  of  the  silliest  women. 
"If  ye  have  charm,"  says  Maggie  Wiley  in 
Mr.  Barrie's  play,  "  it  does  not  much  matter 
what  else  ye  have."  And  it  must  be  remem- 
bered that  Dickens  was  only  eighteen  when 
his  infatuation  began,  and  a  little  more  than 
twenty-one  when  he  received  his  ultimate 
dismissal. 

One  cannot  avoid  thinking  what  a  blessing 
in  disguise  Flora's  refusal  was.  As  an  ideal,  a 
lost  love,  she  was  a  source  of  inspiration  in 
the  work  of  the  novelist,  and  when  she  re- 
appeared in  his  life  she  was  a  figure  for  a 
comedy;  but,  as  a  wife,  it  would  seem  that 
she  would  have  been  the  last  woman  in  the 
world  to  have  made  Dickens  happy.  Poor 
soul  I  She  was  wretched  enough  in  her  re- 
grets in  later  years.  She  is  only  remembered 
as  the  woman  who  jilted  Dickens,  even  as 
[OS] 


Venables  is  remembered  as  the  man  who,  as  a 
school-boy,  broke  the  nose  of  Thackeray. 

One  service  Maria  Beadnell  did  for  Dickens 
and  for  all  mankind.  Her  treatment  of  him 
stimulated  his  ambition  and  made  him  plunge 
into  work,  determined  to  make  a  name  for 
himself.  It  was  during  the  next  few  months 
that  Dickens  began  to  aspire  to  a  class  of  work 
more  satisfying  and  remunerative  than  the 
drudgery  of  the  reporters'  gallery.  He  has 
told  us,  through  the  medium  of  his  biog- 
rapher, that  his  notion  of  becoming  an  actor 
was  suggested  only  by  the  idea  that  the  stage 
would  be  the  source  of  a  good  income.  Then, 
as  he  says,  he  "made  a  great  splash  in  the 
Gallery"  and  the  theatrical  ambitions  were 
abandoned. 

It  was  at  this  time  that  he  began  to  try  his 
hand  at  small  forms  of  fiction.  This  is  a  nat- 
ural progression  from  the  descriptive  work  of 
a  reporter.  It  is  a  step  that  has  been  made  by 
many  writers,  but  never  so  quickly  and  with 
such  complete  success  as  by  Dickens.  The 
novelist  has  described  his  dropping  his  first 
Sketch  "  into  a  dark  letter-box  in  a  dark  office 
up  a  dark  court  in  Fleet  street."  He  had 
told  of  his  agitation  when  this  first  article 
[66] 


appeared  in  all  the  glory  of  print.  "  On  which 
occasion  I  walked  down  to  Westminster  Hall, 
and  turned  into  it  for  half  an  hour^  because 
my  eyes  were  so  dimmed  by  joy  and  pride 
that  they  could  not  bear  the  street  and  were 
not  fit  to  be  seen  there." 

What  then  was  this  first  attempt  that  brought 
first  fear  and  trembling  and  then  tears  of  joy 
to  the  young  enthusiast?  To  the  lovers  of 
Dickens,  it  is  a  matter  of  distinct  interest. 
Mr.  Forster  in  the  Life  states  that  the  first  of 
the  Sketches  by  Bo{  to  appear  was  *'  not  Mr. 
Minns  and  His  Cousin,  as  he  (Dickens) 
thought,  but  Mrs.  Joseph  Porter  over  the  IVayJ' 
The  biographer  says :  "  In  the  January  number 
for  1834  of  what  was  then  called  the  Old 
Monthly  Magazine,  his  first  published  piece  of 
writing  had  seen  the  light."  In  this  statement 
Mr.  Forster  was  in  error  upon  a  point  of  some 
importance.  The  next  letter  to  Kolle  proves 
that  the  "  first  published  piece  of  writing  "  was 
not  the  one  stated  by  the  biographer,  but  the 
one  identified  in  Dickens'  own  recollection. 
Moreover,  it  appeared  not  in  January,  18M, 
but  in  December,  1833.  It  is  characteristic  of 
Forster  —  who  lives  in  the  cabman's  descrip- 
tion of  him  as  "  a  h'arbitrary  gent  "  —  that  he 
[671 


claims  a  more  exact  knowledge  than  Dickens 
of  the  latter's  first  published  writing,  and  then 
proceeds  to  identify  the  wrong  work  and  the 
incorrect  date. 

A  Dinner  at  Poplar  Walk  may  be  found  in 
the  Monthly  Magazine  for  December,  1833, 
by  any  person  of  an  investigating  turn  of 
mind,  whether  a  biographer  or  otherwise.  In 
the  collected  Sketches  the  title  is  changed  to 
Mr.  Minns  and  His  Cousin.  Here  is  Dickens' 
letter  written  with  a  certain  pride  of  author- 
ship; yet  in  diffidence  withal  and  the  hope 
that  his  Dora's  sister  will  approve  —  and  per- 
haps send  the  magazine  to  Dora. 

Bentinck  Street, 
Tuesday  morning. 

My  dear  Kolle,  —  I  intend  with  the  gracious  permis- 
sion of  yourself  and  spouse  to  look  in  upon  you  some 
evening  this  week.  1  do  not  write  you,  however,  for 
the  purpose  of  ceremoniously  making  this  important  an- 
nouncement, but  to  beg  Mrs.  K.'s  criticism  of  a  little 
paper  of  mine  (the  first  of  a  series)  in  the  Monthly 
(not  the  New  Monthly  Magazine)  of  this  month.  I 
have  n't  a  copy  to  send,  but  if  the  number  falls  in  your 
way,  look  for  the  article.  It  is  the  same  that  you  saw 
lying  on  my  table,  but  the  name  is  transmogrified  from 
A  Sunday  out  of  Town  to  A  Dinner  at  Poplar  Walk. 
Knowing  the  interest  (or  thinking  I  know  the  interest) 
[68] 


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/- 


you  are  kind  enough  to  take  in  my  movements,  I  have 
the  vanity  to  make  this  communication. 

Best  remembrances  to  Mrs.  K.     *'  So  no  more  at 
present "  from,  my  dear  KoUe, 

Yours  sincerely, 

Charles  Dickens 

I  am  so  dreadfully  nervous  that  my  hand  shakes  to 
such  an  extent  as  to  prevent  my  writing  a  word  legibly. 

Dickens  lost  no  time  in  writing  this  letter 
to  his  intimate  friend.  It  was  the  shortest 
way  of  conveying  the  news  to  the  Beadnell 
family  that  Charley  Dickens  had  become  an 
author.  We  may  be  sure  that  one  of  the  chief 
causes  of  his  exultation  was  his  knowledge 
that  Maria  Beadnell  would  be  impressed. 
When  he  wrote  to  Kolle  there  was  still  upon 
him  the  agitation  which  caused  him  to  turn 
into  Westminster  Hall  because  his  eyes  were 
not  fit  to  be  seen  in  the  street.  There  was 
good  cause  for  his  emotion;  better  than  he 
realized ;  for  Charles  Dickens  had  found  him- 
self. Still  "  in  the  brave  days  when  we  are 
twenty-one"  he  had  arrived.  He  knew  now 
what  was  to  be  his  life  work,  though  he  had 
no  idea  that  in  a  little  more  than  two  years  he 
would  be  the  most  popular  author  in  England. 

It  is  probable  that  in  choosing  the  form  for 
[69] 


first  essays  in  literature,  Dickens  was  influenced 
by  Wight's  Mornings  at  Bow  Street.  These 
sketches  first  appeared  in  a  newspaper,  the 
Morning  Herald.  They  proved  so  popular 
that  in  1824  they  were  published  in  book  form 
with  illustrations  by  George  Cruikshank,  some 
of  the  best  of  his  small  engravings.  Three 
years  later,  a  second  series  was  published, 
likewise  with  Cruikshank  illustrations.  The 
Sketches  by  Bo{  were  also  published  in  news- 
papers and  magazines ;  were  collected  in  book 
form,  illustrated  by  Cruikshank,  and  appeared 
in  a  second  series.  The  subject  matter  is 
similar,  —  scenes  from  London  life,  —  and  the 
humor  and  style  have  considerable  resemblance. 
The  essential  difference  is  that  Dickens'  sub- 
jects are  general  while  Wight's  are  confined  to 
humorous  incidents  in  the  police  courts. 

The  arrangement  of  the  Sketches  in  book 
form  gives  no  idea  of  the  order  of  their  com- 
position and  of  their  publication  in  the  maga- 
zine. Mrs.  Joseph  Porter  over  the  Way  was 
the  second,  appearing  in  January,  18M.  The 
subject  of  this  sketch  is  an  amateur  theatrical 
performance,  and  the  mischief-making  gossip, 
Mrs.  Porter,  may  be  considered  a  pen  portrait 
of  Mrs.  John  Porter  Leigh  who  in  the  Bill  of 

[70] 


Fare  is  described  as  '*  a  curry,  hot,  biting,  and 
smart."  Horatio  Sparkins  was  published  in 
February,  18M,  The  Bloomshiry  Christening 
in  April,  and  The  Boarding  House  in  May.  As 
the  following  letter  refers  to  The  Boarding 
House  as  being  in  the  hands  of  the  publisher, 
and  as  likely  to  be  returned  —  probably  in 
proof  —  this  letter  was  written  a  short  time 
before  the  appearance  of  the  magazine  for 
May,  1834. 

Bentinck  Street, 
Monday  evening  [March  or  April,  1834]. 

My  dear  Kolle,  —  As  neither  you  nor  yours  have  the 
most  remote  connection  with  The  Boarding  House  of 
which  I  am  the  proprietor,  I  cannot  have  the  least  objec- 
tion to  (indeed  I  shall  be  flattered  by)  your  perusing  it. 
It  is,  however,  in  the  hands  of  the  publisher ;  when  they 
return  it  to  me  you  shall  have  it. 

I  am  much  obliged  to  you  for  purchasing  the  lottery 
ticket.  I  shall  call  for  an  hour  very  soon,  when  I  will  kill 
two  birds  with  one  stone  and  pay  you  for  the  "  wentur," 
besides  bringing  the  O'  Thello.  I  think  if  we  win  we  had 
better  sacrifice  the  discount  and  take  ready  money,  unless 
indeed  you  prefer  gold  bar.  I  see  by  the  announcement 
in  the  diflrerent  lottery  office  windows  that  the  lucky  pur- 
chaser of  a  ticket  may  have  the  value  in  "  money  or  free- 
hold houses."  Suppose  we  have  ten  pound  worth  of 
free-hold  houses  ;  of  course  this  will  afford  a  small  street. 
I  '11  have  one  side  of  the  way  and  you  shall  have  the 
[71] 


other.    I  shall  improve  my  property  by  the  erection  of 
brass  knockers  and  patent  water-closets. 

Give  my  love  to  Mrs.  K.,  and  believe  me,  my  dear 

KoUe, 

Sincerely  yours, 

Charles  Dickens 
Henry  Kolle,  Esq. 

The  burlesque  GThello,  according  to  Mr. 
Kitton,  was  written  in  1833.  It  is  rather 
curious  that  a  performance  of  Othello  is  given 
by  the  amateurs  in  the  sketch  Mrs.  Joseph 
Porter  over  the  Way,  a  production  that  the 
disagreeable  Mrs.  Porter  (?  Mrs.  Leigh)  tri- 
umphantly tells  everybody  was  a  complete 
failure.  In  this  play,  a  prominent  role  was 
assigned  to  the  author's  father,  John  Dickens, 
who  appeared  in  the  character  of  "The  Great 
Unpaid."  There  was  certainly  some  personal 
allusion  in  this.  Perhaps  the  elder  Dick- 
ens had  been  having  difficulty  in  collecting 
his  salary,  or  possibly  that  may  have  been  his 
excuse  to  the  family  for  Micawber-like  im- 
pecuniosity.  John  Dickens  preserved  the 
manuscript  of  GThello,  and,  after  his  son 
became  famous,  gave  away  separate  pages  of 
it  as  souvenirs.  The  first  page  was  in  the 
collection  of  Mr.  William  Wright  and  was 
sold  at  Sotheby's  auction  rooms  in  1899.    On 

[72] 


the  margin  was  the  following:  "The  Great 
Unpaid  was  your  humble  servant,  John 
Dickens.  Alphington,  6th  June,  1842."  Mr. 
S.  Dyer  Knott,  of  Alphington,  near  Exeter, 
had  another  page  of  this  manuscript  with 
John  Dickens'  endorsement. 

It  will  be  seen  that,  whatever  Dickens '  re- 
lations with  the  Beadnell  family  may  have  been 
at  this  time,  he  continued  on  terms  of  inti- 
mate friendship  with  Kolle  and  his  wife.  He 
seems  to  have  set  some  value  upon  Kolle's  criti- 
cal opinion  and  in  the  following  letter  makes 
him  the  confidant  of  his  literary  plans.  The 
hoarding  House  referred  to  in  the  letter 
next  preceding  was  the  first  of  the  sketches 
which  bore  the  signature  of  "  Boz,"  soon  to 
become  a  household  word  with  the  reading 
public. 

This  famous  pseudonym  was  probably  in- 
tended to  be  pronounced  with  the  "  o  "  long. 
There  is  a  bit  of  contemporary  verse  in  which 
Boz  is  made  to  rhyme  with  "owes."  The 
derivation,  too,  suggests  this.  If  Dickens 
adopted  it  from  his  own  nickname  for  his 
brother  Augustus,  taken  from  Goldsmith's 
character  of  Moses,  pronounced  through  the 
nose  "Bozesl"  the  next  transition  would 
[73] 


naturally  be  to  "  Boze  1 "  The  public,  how- 
ever, adopted  the  more  obvious  pronunciation. 
It  is  not  generally  known  that  this  brother 
of  the  novelist  came  to  America  under  some- 
what romantic  circumstances.  In  1868  he 
was  living  in  Chicago  with  a  very  handsome 
woman  —  supposed  to  be  his  wife  —  and  two 
beautiful  children.  When  Dickens  visited 
America  in  that  year,  he  was  announced  to 
give  his  readings  in  Chicago.  Shortly  before 
the  date  set,  his  plans  were  changed,  and  it 
was  stated  that  the  health  of  the  novelist 
would  not  permit  his  making  so  long  a 
journey.  The  Chicago  press  resented  this 
and  charged  Dickens  with  avoiding  that  city 
because  he  knew  that  his  brother  was  living 
there  in  circumstances  which  were  not  par- 
ticularly affluent.  Dickens  made  answer  to 
this  that  he  was  contributing  to  the  support 
of  the  only  genuine  Mrs.  Augustus  Dickens, 
who  was  living  in  England.  A  few  months 
later  Augustus  Dickens  died.  A  short  time 
before  the  Chicago  fire  of  1871,  the  alleged 
Mrs.  Augustus  Dickens  died  and  was  supposed 
to  have  committed  suicide.  The  case  attracted 
considerable  attention  at  the  time,  partly  on 
account  of  the  great  beauty  and  charm  of  the 

[74] 


two  children.  They  were  adopted  by  Chicago 
people.  The  great  fire  occurring  shortly  after- 
ward caused  the  incident  to  be  forgotten. 
These  details  were  obtained  from  a  member  of 
the  writer's  family  who  at  the  time  was  living 
in  Chicago  and  was  well  acquainted  with  the 
facts.^  It  may  be  added  that  not  the  slightest 
censure  could  justly  be  passed  upon  Dickens 
for  his  conduct  in  the  matter.  He  was 
burdened  by  the  claims  of  a  horde  of  poor 
relations,  and  his  liberality  to  them  kept  him 
comparatively  poor  in  spite  of  his  large 
earnings. 

The  next  letter  to  Kolle  must  have  been 
written  in  1834,  as  it  is  sent  from  Bentinck 
street.  Dickens  removed  from  the  house  in 
that  thoroughfare  December  2^,  18M.  At 
the  same  time,  the  letter  shows  that  several  of 
the  Sketches  had  appeared  in  the  Monthly  Mag- 
azine. The  last  of  these  in  1834  was  The 
Steam  Excursion  in  the  October  number. 
They  had  attracted  sufUcient  attention  to 
warrant  pirate    publishers    in    appropriating 

1  Dr.  R.  Slielton  Mackenzie,  in  his  much  criticised  Life  of 
Dickens,  alludes  to  these  events,  and  states  that  the  second  wife 
of  Augustus  Dickens  was  "Miss  Bertha  Phillips,  daughter  of 
Charles  Phillips,  the  eminent  Irish  orator."  Dr.  Mackenzie  gives 
the  date  of  Augustus  Dickens'  death,  Christmas  Day,  1868. 
[75] 


them  for  the  numerous  cheap  periodicals  that 
did  not  make  it  a  practice  to  pay  for  contri- 
butions. The  Monthly  Magazine  had  lost 
some  of  its  popularity,  and  was  not  upon  a 
solid  financial  foundation.  However,  its  new 
editor,  James  Grant,  agreed  to  pay  half-a- 
guinea  a  page,  the  terms  proposed  by  Dickens 
for  the  continuation  of  the  Sketches.  It  is 
evident  that  three  were  paid  for  at  this  rate, 
and  then  the  arrangement  proved  to  be  a 
burden  which  the  magazine  could  not  carry. 
"Only  imagine,"  wrote  Mr.  Grant,  "Mr. 
Dickens  offering  to  furnish  me  with  a  con- 
tinuation, for  any  length  of  time  which 
I  might  have  named,  of  his  Sketches  bp 
Bo{  for  eight  guineas  a  sheet,  whereas  in 
a  little  more  than  six  months  he  could  — 
so  great  in  the  interim  had  his  popularity 
become  —  have  got  a  hundred  guineas  a 
sheet  from  any  of  the  leading  periodicals  of 
the  day." 

Bentinck  Street, 
Friday  morning  [1834]. 

My  dear  Kolle,  —  I  only  returned  from  my  uncle's  at 

Norwood  (where  I  have  been  busily  engaged  for  a  week 

past,  and  whither  I  return  again  today)  late  last  night. 

Consequently  as  they  did  not  forward  your  note  I  could 

[76] 


not  have  the  pleasure  of  seeing  you  on  Friday  evening, 
not  knowing  of  your  invitation. 

They  have  done  me  the  honor  of  selecting  my  article 
for  insertion  in  The  Thief,  where  you  will  see  it  for  the 
small  charge  of  three  pence,  if  you  have  not  yet  paid  two 
and  six. 

I  have  had  a  polite  and  flattering  communication  from 
the  Monthly  people  requesting  more  papers,  but  they  are 
rather  backward  in  coming  forward  with  the  needful.  I 
am  in  treaty  with  them,  however,  and  if  we  close,  my  next 
paper  will  be  Private  Theatricals,  and  my  next  Lon- 
don by  Night.  I  shall  then,  please  God,  commence  a 
series  of  papers  (the  materials  for  which  1  have  been  noting 
down  for  some  time  past)  called  The  Parish.  Should 
they  be  successful,  as  publishing  is  hazardous,  I  shall  cut 
my  proposed  novel  up  into  little  miagazine  sketches. 
Should  I  not  settle  into  this  periodical,  1  shall  try  The 
Metropolitan. 

As  1  am  not  certain  how  long  1  shall  be  detained  at 
Norwood,  I  cannot  say  when  I  can  have  the  pleasure  of 
seeing  you.  As  soon  as  I  return,  be  it  only  for  a  night, 
however,  I  shall  show  myself  at  Newington,  and  must 
take  the  chance  of  finding  you  at  home.  Business  in 
the  shape  of  masses  of  papers,  plans  and  prospectusses, 
and  pleasure  in  the  shape  of  a  very  nice  pair  of  black  eyes 
call  me  to  Norwood  ;  of  course  the  call  is  imperative  and 
must  be  obeyed. 

Pray  give  my  love  (I  may  say  so  I  suppose)  to  Anne 
and  perhaps  you  will  do  me  the  favor  of  turning  over 
the  following  request  in  your  mind.  When  there  is  a 
vacancy  for  a  god-father-ship  either  to  a  young  lady  or 
a  young  gentleman,  for  1  am  not  particular,  who  could 
[77] 


aflford  to  have  one  poor  god-father,  will  you  bear  me  in 
mind  ?     Hint  this  delicately  to  your  "  missus." 
Believe  me,  my  dear  KoUe, 

Ever  yours  sincerely, 

Charles  Dickens 
More  nervous  than  ever. 

It  is  evident  from  this  letter  that  the  publi- 
cation of  the  Sketches  did  not  follow  the 
order  of  their  composition.  Trivate  Theatres 
and  London  by  Night  were  published  after 
the  series  of  papers  called  The  Parish  or  Our 
Parish.  No  doubt  Dickens  had  been  making 
notes,  mental  or  otherwise,  for  the  Sketches 
from  the  beginning  of  his  experiences  as  a  re- 
porter. Like  most  beginners  in  literature,  he 
had  on  hand  a  quantity  of  material  from  which 
to  select  as  occasion  required.  That  this  was 
the  case  with  Dickens  is  shown  by  the  rapid- 
ity of  his  production  as  soon  as  opportun- 
ity came  to  him.  Oliver  Twist  must  have 
been  commenced  for  serial  use  in  Bentlefs 
Miscellany  while  the  writing  of  Pickwick  was 
in  progress.  In  fact,  only  ten  of  the  twenty 
monthly  parts  of  Pickwick  had  appeared  when, 
in  February,  1837,  Oliiw  Twist  began  its 
serial  course  in  Bentley's.  It  seems  incredible 
that  even  Dickens  could  have  written  two  of 

[78] 


the  most  famous  novels  in  literature,  supply- 
ing serial  instalments  of  both.  If  he  did  so, 
he  accomplished  a  feat  which  he  never  at- 
tempted after  he  became  a  more  practiced 
writer.  It  is  not  unreasonable  to  suppose  that 
Oliver  Twist  was  written,  in  part  at  least, 
before  Pickwick.  In  the  series  of  sketches 
called  Our  Parish  may  be  found  the  germ  of 
the  former.  Bumble  is  present  in  all  his  glory, 
and  there  are  many  indications  that  Oliver  and 
his  associates  were  in  process  of  evolution.  It 
is  true  that  in  the  letter  the  author  speaks  of 
The  Parish  and  "  my  proposed  novel  "  as  two 
distinct  works;  but  this  does  not  disprove 
that  Oliver  Twist,  or  the  Parish  Boy's  Progress 
was  in  some  manner  connected  with  the  Parish 
sketches.  It  is  possible,  however,  that  "my 
proposed  novel "  may  have  been  Gabriel  Var- 
don,  tlje  Locksmith  of  London. 

That  Dickens  ever  projected  such  a  work  is 
known  only  from  the  fact  that  it  was  adver- 
tised by  Macrone  in  1836  as  a  new  novel  by 
the  author  of  Sketches  by  Bo{.  It  was  Mac- 
rone who  published  the  SketcJjes  in  book  form- 
He  continued  to  advertise  Gabriel  Pardon  till 
1837,  when  his  failure  in  business  put  a  stop 
to  the  plans  for  its  publication.  This  is  an  in- 
[79  J 


teresting  suggestion,  for  it  is  practically  certain 
that  Gabriel  Pardon  was  the  precursor  of  Bar- 
naby  Rudge.  The  connection  is  not  merely 
one  of  names.  We  know  how  a  name  in- 
vented or  observed  would  haunt  Dickens. 
Balzac  had  the  same  peculiarity.  But  the 
Gabriel  Vardon  advertised  in  18^6,  and  possi- 
bly referred  to  in  the  foregoing  letter  of  18M» 
was  a  novel  dealing  with  events  during  the 
Gordon  riots.  Mr.  Kitton  discovered  that  the 
name  of  Gabriel  Varden  —  spelled  with  an  "  e," 
as  in  Barnaby  Rudge  —  is  in  the  London  di- 
rectory for  1780,  the  year  of  the  riots.  But 
there  is  more  definite  evidence.  The  pres- 
ent writer  has  in  his  collection  a  pamphlet 
(without  covers,  but  with  Dickens'  book  label 
attached)  the  title  of  which  is  "A  plain  and 
Succinct  Narrative  of  the  Late  Riots  and  Dis- 
turbances. .  .  .  With  an  account  of  the  Com- 
mitment of  Lord  George  Gordon  to  the  Tower, 
and  anecdotes  of  his  Life.  London,  1870." 
In  this  work  the  name  of  Gabriel  Varden  ap- 
pears as  that  of  a  shop-keeper  whose  property 
was  damaged  by  rioters.  From  the  top  of  the 
title-page  a  signature  has  been  cut,  probably 
that  of  Dickens.  The  pamphlet  certainly  be- 
longed to  him,  as  the  book  label  proves.    Mar- 

[80] 


ginal  notes  in  pencil  are  in  a  hand-writing 
resembling  his.  In  view  of  these  facts,  it  seems 
likely  that  portions  of  Barnaby  Rudge  were 
written  before  either  Pickwick  or  Oliver  Twist, 
although  the  first-named  novel  did  not  appear 
in  its  final  form  until  after  Nicholas  Nickleby 
and  The  Old  Curiosity  Shop. 

The  foregoing  letter  to  Kolle  shows  how 
enthusiastic  the  young  author  was  in  the  plans 
and  projects  resulting  from  a  fair  start  in  the 
new  career  that  had  opened  to  him.  There 
is  evidence,  too,  of  his  recovery  from  the 
cruel  treatment  he  had  received  from  Maria 
Beadnell.  In  the  midst  of  his  routine  duties 
as  a  newspaper  writer  and  his  enthusiasm  for 
his  literary  work,  he  fmds  time  for  *'  pleasure 
in  the  shape  of  a  very  nice  pair  of  black  eyes." 
Who  the  fair  one  of  Norwood  may  have  been 
is  not  to  be  learned.  He  doubtless  hoped  that 
his  interest  in  this  "nice  pair  of  black  eyes" 
might  be  reported  by  Mrs.  Kolle  to  her  sister, 
the  hard-hearted  Maria.  That  Dickens'  friend- 
ship for  Kolle  was  as  close  as  before  the  latter's 
marriage  is  shown  by  the  request  made  at  the 
end  of  the  letter. 

The  following  note,  written  from  Bentinck 
street,  in  1834,  indicates  that  the  suggestion  in 

[81] 


the  last  paragraph  of  the  preceding  letter  may 
have  been  adopted.  A  little  Miss  Kolle  had 
now  appeared  upon  the  scene,  and  Dickens 
had  been  asked  to  be  the  child's  sponsor  in 
baptism. 

Bentinck  Street, 
Friday  Evening. 

Dear  Kolle,  —  I  snatch  an  instant  to  say  that  1  shall 
be  at  the  Ball's  Pond  Chapel,  please  God,  on  Sunday 
next  at  half  past  two  precisely. 
Believe  me. 

Truly  yours, 

Charles  Dickens 
My  duty  to  your  good  lady. 

The  Kolles  appear  to  have  lived  at  Isling- 
ton at  this  time.  Ball's  Pond  is  in  Islington 
and  was  so  called  from  the  ducking  pond  of  a 
person  named  Ball,  who  conducted  a  tavern 
there  during  the  reign  of  Charles  II. 

Dickens  wrote  his  earlier  sketches  and  be- 
gan his  preliminary  work  as  a  novelist  while 
living  with  his  parents  in  the  Bentinck  street 
house.  His  home  life  seems  to  have  been 
pleasant,  though  there  is  in  existence  an  un- 
published letter  referring  to  the  "damnable 
shadow"  cast  by  his  father.  It  is  impossi- 
ble  to  say  whether  this  is  an  allusion   to 

[82] 


the  erratic  habits  of  the  elder  Dickens  or 
to  his  former  experience  with  the  "  ban-dogs 
of  the  law."  Late  in  18M,  the  young  writer 
decided  to  establish  a  home  of  his  own,  and 
from  Christmas  of  that  year  he  occupied  a 
"three-pair  back"  at  No.  13  Furnival's  Inn, 
"modest  quarters  at  the  top  of  a  steep  and 
dark  staircase."  He  was  at  this  time  nearly 
twenty-three  years  old  and  his  regular  em- 
ployment was  on  the  reportorial  staflf  of  the 
Morning  Chronicle.  The  following  letter  was 
probably  written  early  in  1835, — 

Furnival's  Inn, 
Wednesday  morning. 

My  dear  Kolle,  —  As  you  know  of  old  my  excellent 
good  luck  in  small  matters,  I  think  it  hardly  necessary  to 
say  that  of  course  I  have  received  a  summons  from  the 
office  this  morning,  which  will,  in  all  probability,  detain 
me  the  whole  evening  and  consequently  prevent  my  being 
able  to  enjoy  the  pleasure  of  your  society.  This  is  the 
first  1  have  had  since  1  returned  from  the  country,  and 
as  a  matter  of  course  it  interferes  with  the  only  engage- 
ment 1  had  formed. 

Now  will  you  turn  over  in  your  own  mind  what  even- 
ing will  suit  you  best,  and  just  write  me  a  line  in  the 
morning  in  time  to  prevent  my  being  out,  and  to  enable 
me  to  communicate  with  you  in  case  1  should  be  officially 
engaged.  If  you  don't  do  so  at  once  I  will  be  offended. 
[83] 


Give  my  best  love  to  Henry's  Mrs.  K.,  and  believe 
me,  dear  Kolle, 

Sincerely  yours, 

Charles  Dickens 

Dickens  lived  at  No.  13  Furnival's  Inn  for  a 
year.  During  this  time  the  editorial  powers  of 
the  Morning  Chronicle  recognized  the  value 
of  the  Sketches  and  increased  the  v^riter's  sti- 
pend by  an  additional  two  guineas  a  week. 
This  enabled  him  to  move  to  more  attractive 
rooms  at  No.  1  ^  Furnival's  Inn.  It  has  been 
surmised  that  these  quarters  are  described  in 
Martin  Chu{{lewit  as  John  Westlock's  apart- 
ments. Mr.  Kitton  has  stated  that  it  was 
at  Dickens'  rooms  at  No.  1^  Furnival's  Inn 
that  Mr.  William  Hall  called,  "on  a  certain 
memorable  day  in  the  early  part  of  1836,"  to 
arrange  for  the  writing  of  Pickwick.  There 
is  evidence,  however,  that  this  memorable  day 
was  in  December,  183^.  One  of  the  two 
published  letters  to  Catherine  Hogarth  informs 
her  of  the  negotiations  with  Chapman  &  Hall, 
and  this  is  dated  183^.  Some  time  was  lost 
in  discussion  of  the  precise  character  of  the 
projected  work.  The  manuscript  of  the  first 
monthly  part  must  have  been  delivered  to  the 
publishers  about  March  1st,  and  it  was  prob- 

[84] 


ably  written  during  the  month  of  February, 
1836.  To  the  latter  date  belongs  the  following 
letter  in  the  collection  of  the  present  writer, 
and  now  first  printed.  Although  only  a  brief 
note,  it  is  the  earliest  known  Dickens  auto- 
graph referring  to  Pickwick  by  name,  and  in 
it  the  author  coins  a  word  —  "Pickwickian" 
—  which  he  afterward  used  so  etfectively  that 
it  has  become  a  part  of  the  language.— 

FuRNivAL's  Inn, 
Thursday  Evening. 

Dear  Sirs,  —  Pickwick  is  at  length  begun  in  all  his 
might  and  glory.  The  first  chapter  will  be  ready  to- 
morrow. 

1  want  to  publish  The  Strange  Gentleman.  If  you 
have  no  objection  to  doing  it,  I  should  be  happy  to  let 
you  have  the  refusal  of  it.  I  need  not  say  that  nobody 
else  has  seen  or  heard  of  it. 

Believe  me  (in  Pickwickian  haste). 
Faithfully  yours, 

Charles  Dickens 

Messrs.  Chapman  &  Hall. 

The  Strange  Gentleman  was  not  per- 
formed until  September  29th,  18^6,  at  which 
time  six  monthly  parts  of  Pickwick  had  ap- 
peared. From  this  letter  we  learn  that  it  was 
written  before  Pickwick. 

It  was  while  living  in  his  first  quarters  in 
[85] 


Furnival's  Inn  that  Dickens  became  friendly 
with  George  Hogarth,  one  of  the  writers  on 
the  Chronicle  staff.  Hogarth's  three  daugh- 
ters were  destined  to  play  important  parts  in 
the  life  drama  of  the  novelist ;  one  as  his  ideal 
of  girlhood,  the  original  of  some  of  his  most 
beloved  characters ;  one  as  his  most  loyal  and 
devoted  woman  friend ;  one  as  the  mother  of 
his  nine  children,  the  wife  of  whom  he  de- 
clared, twenty-five  years  later,  that  if  they 
continued  to  live  together  they  would  drive 
each  other  insane. 

There  are  no  more  early  letters  to  Kolle  and 
the  probability  is  that  Dickens'  intimacy  with 
that  friend  (and  with  the  social  circle  in  which 
the  Kolle  and  Beadnell  families  moved)  ceased 
at  about  the  time  he  became  interested  in  the 
Hogarth  family.  After  his  sensational  success 
as  the  author  of  Pickwick  Dickens  formed 
friendships  with  some  of  the  leading  writers, 
artists  and  actors  of  the  period.  These  were 
more  congenial  to  his  taste  and  temperament 
than  the  worthy  but  conventional  folk  of  the 
Lombard  street  coterie.  Dickens  was  not  the 
sort  of  man  to  allow  success  to  make  him 
ignore  old  friends;  but  ambition  and  a  new 
environment  bring  different  interests  and 
[86] 


associates.  Twenty-five  years  passed  before 
Dickens  again  wrote  to  his  old  friend.  Dur- 
ing that  period  the  novelist  created  his  most 
famous  works.  Fame  and  fortune  had  done 
what  they  could  to  make  him  what  he  had 
declared  in  an  early  letter  he  could  never  be, 
"happy  and  contented."  Kolle  had  been  re- 
garded as  a  promising  young  man  at  a  time 
when  Dickens  had  been  considered  an  ineligi- 
ble suitor,  but  it  appears  that  Kolle  had  not 
prospered  during  the  quarter  of  a  century 
which  had  brought  honor  and  a  moderate 
fortune  to  his  old  friend.  Kolle  must  have 
died  poor,  for  his  widow  and  daughter  were 
glad  to  obtain  a  few  guineas  by  the  sale  of 
Dickens'  autographs.  It  is  inferred  from  the 
contents  of  the  following  letter  that  the  two 
old  friends  had  rarely  met  in  the  intervening 
years.  Apparently  Kolle's  letter  in  18^9  was 
a  voice  from  the  past,  like  the  letter  from 
Maria  Beadnell  in  18^^.  Kolle's  daughter 
(perhaps  the  one  for  whom  Dickens  had  stood 
sponsor  in  baptism  in  1839  had  literary 
aspirations  and,  undeterred  by  the  previous 
achievements  of  Voltaire  and  Southey,  had 
written  a  poem  on  the  subject  of  **Joan  of 
Arc."    Kolle  sent  the  manuscript  to  Dickens 

[87] 


either  for  his  personal  opinion  or  as  a  contri- 
bution to  the  periodical  of  which  the  novelist 
was  the  editor. 

Gadshill  Place,  Higham  by  Rochester,  Kent, 
Saturday,  l8th  June,  1859. 

Dear  Kolle,  —  It  is  an  extremely  difficult  thing  to 
pronounce  on  the  qualitlcations  of  any  writer  or  anyone 
aspiring  to  be  a  writer,  with  only  one  youthful  composi- 
tion to  guide  the  judgment. 

I  have  read  Joan  of  Arc  attentively  and  all  I  can  do 
is  to  tell  you  faithfully  what  impression  it  has  left  upon 
me.  A  facility  of  versification  is  certainly  to  be  observed 
in  it,  though  it  has  very  many  weak  and  lame  lines  ;  but 
it  seems  to  me  to  stop  at  turning  prose  into  rhyme,  and  I 
don't  see  much  good  in  that.  When  I  say  this  I  mean 
that  I  do  not  find  the  writer  to  see  the  story  poetically, 
or  to  place  any  scene  in  it  vividly,  through  the  aid  of  a 
bright  and  picturesque  imagination,  before  the  reader. 

After  laying  the  piece  down  1  do  not  remember  any 
thought  in  it,  any  fancy,  any  image,  any  little  touch  of 
description  that  gives  me  the  least  notion  connected  with 
the  story  of  which  I  was  not  already  possessed.  I  do  not 
believe  that  the  way  to  success,  recompense  or  happiness 
in  composition  lies  through  such  a  portal,  and  unless  the 
writer  can  do  much  better,  my  advice  to  her  is  to  leave  it 
alone  ;  but  she  may  be  able  to  do  better,  and  considered 
as  an  amateur  lady-composition,  this  is  very  good. 

1  understand  you,  however,  to  wish  to  know  whether 
this  is  something  beyond  such  a  composition  ?     I  think 
not.    In  remembrance  of  the  old  days  to  which  you  so 
[88] 


feelingly  refer  in  your  note,  and  which  are  no  less  dear 
to  me,  do  not  hesitate  to  write  to  me  again  on  this  sub- 
ject, if  you  should  see  reason  for  doing  so,  and  pray  as- 
sure your  daughter  that  I  am  not  a  dragon,  but  that  I  tell 
her  the  truth  as  her  father's  old  friend  should. 
Faithfully  yours, 

Charles  Dickens 

Henry  Kolle,  Esq. 

Six  years  later  other  poems  by  Miss  Kolle 
were  sent  by  her  father  to  Dickens,  who  then 
wrote  for  the  last  time  to  his  old  friend. 

Gad's  Hill  Place, 
Tuesday,  Dec.  6,  1865. 

My  dear  Kolle,  —  1  have  not  marked  the  accompany- 
ing copy  of  your  daughter's  verses  because  the  little  that  I 
have  to  say  about  them  may  be  best  said  generally.  They 
are  very  musical,  very  creditable,  very  good.  As  editor 
of  a  periodical  I  read  many  much  worse,  and  many  much 
better.  As  a  composition  of  a  young  lady  in  private  life 
they  are  interesting  and  meritorious;  but  1  cannot  do 
such  violence  to  what  I  believe  to  be  the  truth  as  to  en- 
courage a  sensitive  young  creature  to  enter  the  public 
lists  so  armed.  Great  disappointment  and,  consequently, 
great  unhappiness  would  result  from  such  a  rash  venture. 
There  may  be  promise  in  your  daughter  not  expressed 
by  these  verses.  Judging  her  solely  by  their  internal 
evidence,  1  find  her  on  a  level  with  hundreds  and  thou- 
sands  of  unheard-of  amateurs.  There  is  a  curious  ex- 
pression of  conscious  weakness  in  every  page  but  one. 
The  purpose  that  cannot  express  itself  in  words  without 
[89] 


italicising  them  is  waited  on  by  a  misgiving  that  it  wants 
force  and  struggles  for  expression  in  vain.  If  the  lines 
were  my  own  daughter's,  1  should  tell  her  exactly  what 
I  tell  you. 

When  I  got  to  Paris  on  that  occasion  to  which  you 
refer,  1  carried  out  my  part  of  our  contract  as  heartily  as 
I  now  send  all  good  Christmas  wishes  to  you  and  yours. 
My  dear  Kolle, 

Faithfully  yours  always, 

Charles  Dickens 

These  two  letters  are  striking  evidence  of 
Dickens'  characteristic  honesty,  kindness  and 
loyalty.  An  unwelcome  verdict  could  scarcely 
be  written  in  terms  more  considerate.  The 
same  frankness  and  firmness  appear  in  the 
later  letters  to  Mrs.  Winter;  and  we  see  re- 
vealed in  all  of  them  "the  good,  the  gentle, 
high-gifted,  ever-friendly,  noble  Dickens,"  as 
Carlyle  said  of  him,  "every  inch  of  him  an 
honest  man." 


[90] 


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